Amalia
She leads the way out as he begins to explain his discoveries, listening intently as they trudge into the snow. The frost is still light enough to be charitably considered pleasant, and she relishes the feeling of it between her half-feline toes, still marveling at the fact that she can wander barefoot through the ice. His playful question makes her grin, tossing her head back to look at him as she deposits her burdens onto the bench, sinking down beside them. "You're the one who's a busy man," the girl shrugs in reply, patting the place next to her in quiet invitation.Her smile fades as he begins to speak, nodding along with his revelations. That he starts with his ignorance endears him to her, a wry smile curling at her lips, no attempt to deny that fact. He'd wanted to save the world when they met, without understanding what the world was. It was not unlike the version of him she'd met in the library, the one she could not stand, and she is grateful to see the shift in attitude, humility finally appearing to have pierced that stubborn skin.
She knows about the gods- was the one to find out in the first place, told by Vi in whispered dreams, quiet reassurances given to those she trusts most in the world. But who told him? Or is he basing the knowledge off the roses, now free for any to harvest and aid? "Have you planted your roses yet?" she wonders, remembering her own trials at Safrin's shrine with a fresh and terrible pang. "They don't make it easy," the girl agrees, thinking back to those glistening black eyes, the cruelty of her goddess' words, the promise that she made. Sighing heavily, Amalia drops her head. "We have to trust in Vi."
His next statement betrays who he's spoken to, and she smiles distantly at the thought of Jigano, though it too is marred by pain. She knows about the origin of the monsters, too, but not about the plans to keep them contained. Glancing up with a curious frown, the girl tilts her head. "How?" A perimeter of Luxere, as she'd suggested to Delah, or maybe something else? Has he stumbled on some new wisdom after all, or is he going to tell her what her people have known for years?
It could go either way.
And then there is Zariah. Amalia winces as she hears the name, glancing away sharply, her lips pulled into an uncharacteristic snarl. "Your cousin is a madwoman." There is no apology in her voice, no softening the words: they are hard and brittle as they leave her lips, her own wounds still a long way from healing. Resting her elbows in her knees, Amalia places her chin on her palms, kicking at the snow. "She treated this place and its people like we were nothing. As though we were heathen children." Such is the girl's anger: a blazing thing at the bottom of her soul, wrapped in a shroud of pain and fear. She is terrified, not just of Zariah but of others like her, terrified of her home being ripped from her again, of the ignorance and self-importance so many Outlanders seem to feel.
As though summoned by her discontent a song suddenly pierces through the air, low and melodic, the sound of ancient seas. Despite herself Amalia raises her head, a smile slipping onto her face as Jyoti swims into view, starlight glittering in her wake. The little whale is is her element, thriving in the darkening winter, and the baker cannot help but laugh as her soulmate engulfs her in a tightly swam circle before flitting over to inspect Loren, seeking scritches and bestowing calm. "You're a ham, Jyoti," the Shield says fondly, tilting her head on her hands, dark eyes sparkling as she watches the calf.
she was like the moon-
part of her was always hidden away
part of her was always hidden away
