the sound of change

ASHE question: how do you make a monster stop feeling so monsterous? you give her something she can hold in her palms without crushing, you give her something sweet and tell her to keep it. I do sit closer to her, a leg crossing over hers. How could I not? Her voice is such a balm—gentle and steady over a wound that had stayed raw for so long I’d stopped believing it could ever heal. I remember the moment I realized I couldn’t quite remember what her voice sounded like. How it broke something in me. That night I painted her from memory, desperate to hold on to her face if nothing else. I realize now how many details I missed. I’ll have to fix it. My brows furrow as the ache resurfaces. “Theea wrote me a letter,” I say, the words slow, careful. “And they had each sent a feather with it, inviting me here.” My hands tighten slightly in my lap. “Some part of me knows they want me back, but… I’ve just been away for so long. Changed so much. I abandoned them.” But then it’s Theea we’re talking about. And that name alone is enough to warm everything in me. To pull me gently out of my self-reproach. I nod, unable to stop the small, quiet smile that follows. “You’re going to love her,” I say, and I mean it with every part of me. And then she pulls me into a tight embrace—the kind I’d forgotten how much I needed. Condolences I never heard. Grief I never shared. And suddenly it’s there, too much to carry alone. I squeeze her back hard, breath catching as I take a shuddering inhale. “She was so strong through it,” I manage. “Stronger than she should have been.” I sniff against the rush of tears, and I rest my head against my mother’s beating heart. For a moment, I let myself pretend that she is going to stay. That this warmth, this tether to something I lost, won’t be pulled away again. I stay like that for what feels like forever—and not nearly long enough—before I finally lean back just enough to look up at her. “It hasn’t all been bad,” I tell her, needing her to know. “I was doing what I thought was best for her. Keeping her safe, out of the trials of Caido. It kept her alive while everyone seemed to be dropping like flies. And the three of us—we were happy. And we told her about everyone. About you.” you wipe the blood from her hands you say her name, over and over like an absolution. you forgive her. you forgive her. you forgive.