rattle the cage

ASHE I'm not a girl.    "Ocean eyes?" Ashe wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "Have you ever seen lakes up in mountain valleys, on a really clear day?" She thought fondly of snow-capped peaks, the scent of pine and the sea below. A lifetime ago. "They're more like that."    She gave a curious raise of her brows as she took another long drink, and she ate pieces of warm bread ripped from the roll left at their table as Kiada explained. The more she went on, her bites slowed, until she stopped altogether and dropped her hands to the table. "Only two friends got hitched, really shitty at making more friends, too fucked up a history to let just anyone stay?" She gave a tilt of her head and raised her glass to Kiada. "I swear you just described me."    She let out a quiet laugh after a hearty drink, grimacing as it settled in her belly. What did she normally do? "I'm training," she said, looking up again. "Eating, sleeping, catching up with my family. Recovering. And I'm looking for Percy, my unicorn. But before..."    Her eyes darkened, but she just swallowed and looked down to the glass between her hands. To the ring of twisting, silver branches on her left hand as it gleamed in the light. "I spent my days with my other half when I wasn't visiting my family, and his--our--daughter, Theea. We, uh...We did everything together. I was out in the storms looking for him. For them." And you failed, came a hiss from somewhere dark in her mind.    "Otherwise I spent a lot of time trying to get the barrier down. Obsessed over it after we beat the demon, after..." Her heart skipped--her breath caught--she hadn't realized it would be hard to say--he was fine now, more than fine. "I just needed to get it down. Then I had to go into the storms, and now that I'm back.... this is it, I guess." She gave a shrug, glancing down to Soot as he slowly enjoyed his wine before looking up again. "Shit never really slows down." I'm a storm with skin.