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

Tears bite at her eyes, threatening to fall onto her hands, on the whale who rests upon her lap. Every one of Wessex's words is another lash, another wound opening across her brittle hide. She winces at the comparison to Ronin, unable to bring up the fact that that resurrection, too, caused her to be taken aback. What is the point? What is the point of any of it, of her explanations and honesty, her attempts at fair exchange? Let's talk like adults, Wessex said, and Amalia had tried, she truly had, but clearly she is still a child. Somewhere in the process the girl failed, stumbled and fell so much lower than she started, the tentative bond forged by fire and blood so swiftly shattered by her foolish youth.

Wessex rises, and for a moment Amalia considers reaching out, stopping her from escaping, clinging to her legs and begging for a chance, for things to go back to the way they were. But what is the point? The older woman has clearly made her choice, and Amalia has already ruined things enough. I have never plotted to destroy their religion- and the baker winces in full now, recoiling as though slapped, curling deeper in on herself as Wessex towers above her, a pillar of judgment, the last thing she has which resembles family finding her wanting and slipping away. I didn't say that! she wants to yell; I never said you cannot live!

I never wanted to hurt you-

I only wanted to make you proud.

The silence is oppressive, a weighty and swollen cloud on her shoulders, heavy with the sort of rain that can wipe away histories, leave floods and mudslides in its wake. Over and over and over again Amalia replays Wessex's words, trying to determine where she went wrong, what she could have possibly done to ignite such thinly veiled hatred and contempt. Plotted to destroy... my right to live freely... defend myself from you... Are these the things Wessex thinks of her, the things Amalia is? Is she truly so monstrous, so cold and uncaring and juvenile and bad? Does Wessex really hate her, as much as it now seems? How is she any different than Wessex, in the end? What has she done but followed her beliefs, been honest about the things she knows to be right, whether the Ascended agrees or not?

When did she fail so miserably? It is fitting that Amalia has always viewed Wessex as mother figure, because she is certain she has not felt so miserably small and ineffective since her last fight with Rishima, shortly after her Nani's death. Stupid, stupid, she tells herself, her fingernails extending into claws, digging into the skin of her curled fists, pinpricks of blood appearing on her palms. Worthless, forgotten, left behind. Jyoti utters a croon of protest as the girl tightens further in, as though by coiling up she might vanish, disappear into a pocket of nothingness and leave this world where all she does is make mistake after mistake.

She wishes she could turn into an owl and simply fly away.

She does not look up to watch Wessex walk away, the last of her history leaving her behind, family rejecting her in one fell swoop. Desperately she hopes to wake up, to find this is all a terrible dream, to reach out and grab the woman and force her to stay. She doesn't, of course - doesn't move, doesn't lift her head, just remains frozen by the ice of Wessex's words, the weight of her own failures pressing on her shoulders, a smothering and suffocating blanket of doubt falling upon her soul. "I'm sorry," Amalia whispers into her knees, the ground, her eyes pressed closed, her face hidden by hair. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."