meet me where the falling stars live
i will wait for you
There is a time when she considers staying here, letting the day pass her by and forgetting the weight of the world. She could roll her responsibilities off her shoulders, leave behind the bakery, the government- all of it. She could stay here, or better, run into the woods, find a way across the river and escape the life she no longer knows how to live.
She will do none of these things, but she could.
She isn't crying by the time Wessex finds her, but the evidence of her distress is obvious on her face, tear tracks tripping over angular cheeks, the white of her eyes bloodshot and red. The voice that says her name is a familiar one, and without looking up Amalia knows who stands there, her body stiffening before relaxing, too tired to put up a fight. This will hurt too, she knows: she has not spoken to Wessex since that day at the cataracts, since the woman she once thought to be her last tie to family essentially disowned her under those trees. Has she come now to gloat at the defeat of all that Amalia holds most sacred, the mockery the Voice has made of her goddess, the successful spread of a wretched disease? A season ago Amalia would not have thought it possible, would have staunchly defended the older woman, believing her heart to be in the right place.
Today? Today she is too tired to defend anyone, too beaten down to see the good in people. Today Amalia is empty of optimism, and Wessex's presence is just one more wound on a hide already littered with lacerations and never given time to scar.
Turning her face up to the woman, Amalia does not try to hide her weariness, does not mask her expression or affect an awkward smile. She is tired and it shows in the dullness of her eyes, the flat expression of her voice, the hollowness of her cheeks. "Hello, Wessex," the Shield says softly, Jyoti shifting in her lap.
She will do none of these things, but she could.
She isn't crying by the time Wessex finds her, but the evidence of her distress is obvious on her face, tear tracks tripping over angular cheeks, the white of her eyes bloodshot and red. The voice that says her name is a familiar one, and without looking up Amalia knows who stands there, her body stiffening before relaxing, too tired to put up a fight. This will hurt too, she knows: she has not spoken to Wessex since that day at the cataracts, since the woman she once thought to be her last tie to family essentially disowned her under those trees. Has she come now to gloat at the defeat of all that Amalia holds most sacred, the mockery the Voice has made of her goddess, the successful spread of a wretched disease? A season ago Amalia would not have thought it possible, would have staunchly defended the older woman, believing her heart to be in the right place.
Today? Today she is too tired to defend anyone, too beaten down to see the good in people. Today Amalia is empty of optimism, and Wessex's presence is just one more wound on a hide already littered with lacerations and never given time to scar.
Turning her face up to the woman, Amalia does not try to hide her weariness, does not mask her expression or affect an awkward smile. She is tired and it shows in the dullness of her eyes, the flat expression of her voice, the hollowness of her cheeks. "Hello, Wessex," the Shield says softly, Jyoti shifting in her lap.
day and night
AMALIA
