such small hands

-- and from Rory's lap Jigano rises, slinking out of the hunter's embrace and leaving, leaving, making his way out of her vision and into some other, better frame, tired of her childish shit -- -- and the girl's fingernails dig into her skin, leaving angry red crescents upon her arms as she tries and fails and tries and fails to say the one thing she knows she should, but cannot bring up to her lips, because she's already ruined this and is too scared of breaking it further -- -- and the crevasse that has opened between them stretches on, widening, gaping, cruel and unyielding, threatening to swallow the fragile thing that they have built and bury it under the earth -- -- and then his arms are around her, around them both, and his voice is in her ear, words she does not deserve, words she is supposed to say, and she realizes all at once that they weren't fractured, it was only her, and her heart blooms with gratitude and shame. Amalia pulls herself onto her knees and pivots to face Jigano, a wealth of wild and heedless emotion within her fragile voice. "No," she breathes fervently in reply, shaking her head while reaching out to take his hand off her shoulder and into her grasp, black eyes earnest with apology as she searches his face. "I'm sorry, Jigano, I- I shouldn't have said that, I didn't mean you, it's just that I was so angryand- and- and scared-" And here she stops and falls onto her heels, swallowing the lump in her throat. Her dark eyes glittering with unshed tears, she glances again between the men before looking at the ground. "Everything is changing, and I don't know what it will mean, and it's all happening so fast and I just started feeling like I had a family again and I don't want to lose it... to lose you." a m a l i a You were young and you'd stare With a reverence unimpaired Searching in your dark eyes to find the stars already there