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 glance down at the feathers tied to my belt. Her voice pulls a smile to my mouth, soft and crooked at the edge. “Funny, isn’t it?” I murmur, fingers brushing one of the feathers. “The things that start sounding reasonable when no one’s around to talk you out of them.” I glance back over my shoulder again. There they are—my brothers, grown and even graying, gods help me. I spot silver threading into my own raven hair here and there. It's a strange kind of theft, the way time takes your edges first. I was nineteen the last time I saw them. Nineteen. I finally nod. “I just want them to see everyone,” I say quietly. “Unlike the rest of you, I’ll still be here. After.” After everyone returns to Mort. After the world grows quiet again. There was a time I would’ve bristled at being offered comfort, some part of me still armored in guilt and stubbornness. But now, after so many years of wanting to hear her advice more than anything… now I just listen. I let myself feel it. I let her words reach the places in me I thought had hardened too much to absorb anything but grief. Theea has become more than I ever dared hope—resilient, luminous, impossibly good, even with the bruises the world gave her. I didn't fail her completely. Not if she turned out like this. “She was determined to meet them,” I say, my smile worn soft with memory. “That one’s on me—I told her everything. Every story, every stumble. I tried to keep it honest, but…” I chuckle. “She romanticized the hell out of it.” I reach for my mom’s hand, thumb brushing over her knuckles like I did as a child. “I told her about you. How you never stopped looking for me.” That old ache tightens in my chest again, the barb of guilt catching on the ribs. But I don’t speak it aloud. Not today. There’s no time for re-lit confessions or apologies that echo what’s already been said. If motherhood has taught me anything—anything at all—it’s that I would forgive Theea a thousand times over, for anything. So what right do I have to refuse my own mother’s forgiveness? “I don’t know if you ever got the message,” I start, a grin sneaking in, “but once, when she was little, she spent two whole days drawing what she thought you looked like. We stopped at one of Mort’s shrines, and she left it there. And I heard her—” I huff a quiet laugh, shaking my head. “She was asking him to let you come scold me.” I lift a brow at her. “Apparently, I ate the last of the sugared berries after she went to bed.” “Not just for that!” comes the indignant voice from behind me. “It was because you told me Dad did it, and I bit him!” I barely have time to straighten and react before she’s in front of me and in my arms. I wrap her up tight, one hand finding the back of her head, petting gently like I used to when she was tiny and furious at the world. “He deserved it,” I mutter against her hair with a laugh. She snorts, breathless. “You came.” “Not even I would miss this,” I say, drawing back to look at her properly. Then I turn, still holding her hand, and look to my mother. “Theea,” I say, heart beating strangely in my throat, “this is your grandmother. Vai.” And after a second, with the twist of a smirk I add, “Please do not bite her.” 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.