when water is as thick as blood

Amalia

'Cause she's just like the weather
Can't hold her together
Born from dark water
Daughter of the r a i n and s n o w

Jyoti is never one to refuse affection, especially when she feels connection between the offering party and her soulmate. Because it is true: Amalia feels affection for the woman, an affection born from proximity and bred in loss, shared experiences and lessons learned. Things were simple in those days, when Wessex was the babysitter, the role model, and Amalia was Accepted, and the world was small.

The world is bigger now, and bigger means more complicated. Amalia watches Jyoti and Wessex with a twisted feeling in her gut, half longing, half fear, all nostalgic and cruel. The starwhale swims neatly around the woman, investigating her work, the crimson moss, before coming once more to drift near Amalia, starlight shimmering in her wake. Idly the girl runs fingers across her back, nodding in response to the barrage of questions. "They let me go because of Jyo. Starwhales are sacred to them." Again, a small answer, not the full story, because there is a more important question brewing, a larger challenge to endure.

"And you flew?"

There has always been a space between them, gaps that keep them from being quite friends. Wessex is her senior by nearly twenty years, closer to her mother than the girl. Wessex sees the world in crisp shades of grey, and Amalia sees a continuous spectrum, never quite sure what color things are. Wessex is stone and Amalia is water, shifting and changing, beating against the world, filling the spaces where she is needed and slowly, slowly, carving out her own.

But of course, most importantly, Wessex is Ascended, and Amalia is Attuned. They have chosen opposing sides in a war older and fiercer and bigger than themselves.

"Yes. As an owl." Brief, but Wessex will understand what it means, the implications clear in her intonation, the way she shifts against her own skin, her expression apologetic and defiant, glittering emotion in her eyes. A gift from the Old Gods, her gods- a line in the sand.

She glances at the ground then, not really sure what more to say. There are a million things, but none seem appropriate, nothing feels right upon her tongue. I'm sorry. I'm changing. I miss you. I'm afraid. It is like speaking to her mother, she realizes. Amalia had never known what to say to Rishima, how she would react; but oh, she had ached to say it all, to find solace in her mother's arms. So she says something smaller, a lead-in to more, a strange and stupid comment with an obvious reply. "What are you doing?"