Amalia
only lonely hid the morning from the stars
✩
Amalia wonders if she made a mistake, speaking the name of the other god, expressing her discontent. She has not told anyone about that day: Frey's consternation, followed by what they did, hands and lips and other things, touching and stroking and filling. Uncomfortable at the memory, Amalia shifts, tightening her grasp upon herself. It had not been unpleasant (indeed, quite the opposite), but it had not been anything she wanted, anything she sought. Even as Safrin absolves her of guilt, Amalia chews unhappily at her lip, her fingers grasping tightly at her shins. "But I could have done that small thing," she sighs, "If I had been better. I- I know I am not responsible. When when Frey took me to the Spire I... I..."
She trails off, her voice failing, no longer sure what she meant to say. Nothing seems to make much sense, to have any purpose past what she knows. And perhaps that is the message she needs: that no matter what she may say or do, no matter how she may wish, she is meaningless, inconsequential, without any purpose in the grand scheme of things.
She does not expect Safrin to sit beside her, much less to gently stroke her spine. Surprise courses through her and she stiffens in response. But only for an instant; then she melts, relaxing with a heavy sigh into the deity's caress. It is a comfort she has not experienced since her grandmother, the gentle and protective touch cutting deep into the girl's soul. One shuddering breath, and then another: had anyone asked her in the year before this whether she could see herself being cared for by a goddess, Amalia would have laughed.
There are many things that have changed in a year. "There was too much death." She remembers Ronin falling to the Spire Monster, the creature's own tragic life, Kristopher's head clasped in her hand, the body of the leviathan tortoise on the ground...
A leviathan...
...tortoise...
Lifting her head, Amalia gasps as a moment clicks inside her brain. Spinning to face Safrin, the girl breathes: "Was there... in the Spire... a tulmhainar?"
She trails off, her voice failing, no longer sure what she meant to say. Nothing seems to make much sense, to have any purpose past what she knows. And perhaps that is the message she needs: that no matter what she may say or do, no matter how she may wish, she is meaningless, inconsequential, without any purpose in the grand scheme of things.
She does not expect Safrin to sit beside her, much less to gently stroke her spine. Surprise courses through her and she stiffens in response. But only for an instant; then she melts, relaxing with a heavy sigh into the deity's caress. It is a comfort she has not experienced since her grandmother, the gentle and protective touch cutting deep into the girl's soul. One shuddering breath, and then another: had anyone asked her in the year before this whether she could see herself being cared for by a goddess, Amalia would have laughed.
There are many things that have changed in a year. "There was too much death." She remembers Ronin falling to the Spire Monster, the creature's own tragic life, Kristopher's head clasped in her hand, the body of the leviathan tortoise on the ground...
A leviathan...
...tortoise...
Lifting her head, Amalia gasps as a moment clicks inside her brain. Spinning to face Safrin, the girl breathes: "Was there... in the Spire... a tulmhainar?"
