Safrin
Safrin’s frown follows Nova as she steps away, not sharp enough to wound and not soft enough to indulge, the curve of it settling over her mouth like a shadow crossing the moon. The snow continues to glitter around them, the shrine still bathed in the silver radiance of her arrival, but the goddess does not allow the little swell of devastation to become the centre of the sky merely because Nova has tried to make herself small beneath it.
"Nova," she says, and though her voice remains gentle, there is a firmer thread drawn through it now, bright as wire beneath silk. "What are the tears for?" One elegant brow rises as she looks at her daughter, not with cruelty, not with the catastrophic displeasure she might have turned upon anyone else who had come before her with half a task and a trembling lip, but with the particular expectation reserved for something beloved enough to be shaped carefully. Her gaze lowers briefly to the untouched bracelet, then returns to Nova’s face, luminous and unblinking. "You have not been cast from the stars, my darling. You have not been broken beyond mending, nor have I taken one ounce of love away from you." The words are warm, but there is no room inside them for collapse, no little nest of pity into which Nova might tuck herself and disappear. "You failed to do what I asked, and that means your bracelet cannot be altered as Caly's has been. That is all."
Her attention flickers to Caly, then, catching the bright tangle of protectiveness there as easily as starlight catches on snow, and a private smile touches Safrin’s lips, small and pleased despite the moment, because of course her daughters would pull toward one another even when the lesson was not shared between them. Still, she gives a delicate shrug, the movement making the light around her shoulders shimmer.
"I suppose that is all up to Nova." Her voice turns back toward the one in question, patient now in the way the heavens are patient with a star not yet ready to burn as brightly as it might. "She may try again, if she wishes. She may decide that a mistake is a monster and run from it until she has worn herself hollow, or she may lift her chin, remember whose daughter she is, and finish what she began."
"Nova," she says, and though her voice remains gentle, there is a firmer thread drawn through it now, bright as wire beneath silk. "What are the tears for?" One elegant brow rises as she looks at her daughter, not with cruelty, not with the catastrophic displeasure she might have turned upon anyone else who had come before her with half a task and a trembling lip, but with the particular expectation reserved for something beloved enough to be shaped carefully. Her gaze lowers briefly to the untouched bracelet, then returns to Nova’s face, luminous and unblinking. "You have not been cast from the stars, my darling. You have not been broken beyond mending, nor have I taken one ounce of love away from you." The words are warm, but there is no room inside them for collapse, no little nest of pity into which Nova might tuck herself and disappear. "You failed to do what I asked, and that means your bracelet cannot be altered as Caly's has been. That is all."
Her attention flickers to Caly, then, catching the bright tangle of protectiveness there as easily as starlight catches on snow, and a private smile touches Safrin’s lips, small and pleased despite the moment, because of course her daughters would pull toward one another even when the lesson was not shared between them. Still, she gives a delicate shrug, the movement making the light around her shoulders shimmer.
"I suppose that is all up to Nova." Her voice turns back toward the one in question, patient now in the way the heavens are patient with a star not yet ready to burn as brightly as it might. "She may try again, if she wishes. She may decide that a mistake is a monster and run from it until she has worn herself hollow, or she may lift her chin, remember whose daughter she is, and finish what she began."
