Amalia
stop thinking so much
Carrots and potatoes chopped, Amalia sets about shucking peas, the final vegetable in her basket. As she does she listens to Deimos' story of his youth, tides and oceans and a moonlit coast. "Was it beautiful?" she breathes, wondrous. "The ocean?" She yearns to see such magical things, the subjects of books she only half-knows. Oceans and mountains, deserts and lakes: Amalia itches to explore them all, to have the world at her fingertips at last. Wistfully she continues working, though her thoughts are far away.
But the mention of parents brings her her back, and the baker listens with hungry interest, happy to drink of every detail, make a map of his history and use it to find her way to him. Parents of water and fire take shape within her mind, and she envisions them as towering figures, wise and wild and kind and just. "She sounds like mine," Amalia remarks, thinking of her own dark and blistering mother, a gale of information, an educator and scholar, whether Amalia asked for it or not.
Having finished with the peas, Amalia goes to fetch the dough, looking for a wide flat surface on which to roll it out. There are more questions on her tongue, more things she wants to know about him. "What about Kiada?" she asks, thinking of the familiarity they share, the obvious history between harpy and reaper, behemoth and spitfire. "How did you meet her?"
you're breaking your own heart
