we're always running scared but holding knives
Overwhelming, but not nearly as unmanageable as I anticipated.
That's how Ever had described it in those first few weeks with Fern. And Isla believes he'd believed it at the time, truly. In fact she still thinks that's the case, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Between the days growing colder, the nights drawing in, and the rain quite literally screaming at every opportunity, there have been more outside stressors than she can count, and that's without considering what hypervigilance and insomnia have done to Ever over a prolonged period.
Add in all the expected difficulties of having a newborn, and Isla's decision had come almost fully formed one morning - the same morning she'd found Ever feverishly rocking a cabbage to sleep on the sofa, truthfully. There'd been no time to even consider their moving house, not yet and certainly not with the aviator barely able to string two thoughts together, let alone for them to plan anything else, so the Remedy had tiptoed out of the house with Fern bundled against her a short time later.
She'd assured Everest that they would be back soon - and they are, he just... might not be expecting his daughter to be walking herself inside. "Here we are, sweetheart," Isla is saying to Fern, voice soft and warm and eyes still shining with a mix of awe and adoration, her arm around her little shoulders as she guides them back into the apartment. It had been her first time at a shrine since becoming Ancient, and whilst it had been to Frey rather than Dygra, there's always something humbling about the touch of divinity.
"Ever? We're home," she calls once they step inside, her tone tentative as if wondering if he'd taken himself across Torchline when he realised they'd gone out.
That's how Ever had described it in those first few weeks with Fern. And Isla believes he'd believed it at the time, truly. In fact she still thinks that's the case, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Between the days growing colder, the nights drawing in, and the rain quite literally screaming at every opportunity, there have been more outside stressors than she can count, and that's without considering what hypervigilance and insomnia have done to Ever over a prolonged period.
Add in all the expected difficulties of having a newborn, and Isla's decision had come almost fully formed one morning - the same morning she'd found Ever feverishly rocking a cabbage to sleep on the sofa, truthfully. There'd been no time to even consider their moving house, not yet and certainly not with the aviator barely able to string two thoughts together, let alone for them to plan anything else, so the Remedy had tiptoed out of the house with Fern bundled against her a short time later.
She'd assured Everest that they would be back soon - and they are, he just... might not be expecting his daughter to be walking herself inside. "Here we are, sweetheart," Isla is saying to Fern, voice soft and warm and eyes still shining with a mix of awe and adoration, her arm around her little shoulders as she guides them back into the apartment. It had been her first time at a shrine since becoming Ancient, and whilst it had been to Frey rather than Dygra, there's always something humbling about the touch of divinity.
"Ever? We're home," she calls once they step inside, her tone tentative as if wondering if he'd taken himself across Torchline when he realised they'd gone out.
Isla
