you are what you love

Ellyra

Get hot
Get too close to the flame

Ellyra didn’t interrupt, even though several times she wanted to. When Soh finished, Ellyra tilted her head slightly. “Okay. First of all? That makes complete sense.” Her tone was matter-of-fact. “You spent years building an identity around service and responsibility. Of course it feels strange to set it down. That doesn’t mean it was the only thing that made you you.” She leaned forward a little, elbows brushing the table. “Titles are scaffolding, but they’re not the building.”

A crooked smile tugged at her mouth. “You were Sohalia before Ambassador, even before you were the Heart, or the Luminary. You’re still Sohalia now. The part of you that organized evacuations and negotiated diplomacy and opened the city’s doors to abandoned? That’s not gone. It’s just not wearing a badge anymore.” But here was the thing about Ellyra: she was deaf to her own advice. At the mention of living in someone else’s shadow, her brow furrowed and she sucked her teeth. “Whose shadow? Stormbreak’s? The gods’? Expectations?” She shook her head gently. “You don’t owe a city your entire future just because you helped save it.” Twice. ”The only person you owe anything to is yourself.”

Her expression softened, and she took another taste of her treat. “And the exciting part? That’s the important bit. If there’s even a spark of curiosity there, that’s worth listening to. Most people don’t get a clean break like this. It’s terrifying, but we’ve experience it before. When the barrier fell and we could actually leave the city we grew up in.” She reached across the table and nudged Soh’s wrist lightly. ”What if you come back with me to King’s End?”

Wild, open space
Talk like an open book