EVIE
I want your midnights
It pretty much goes unquestioned why Evie isn't particularly religious.Or, it's unquestionable for her, Amalia, and well...nobody else left around to spill the beans on her particular secret. To live your years expected to be perfect, beloved by all including the Mighties On High and all that only to realize you had been born
But no matter how long or how desperately she had hidden in the manor, it was a risk she couldn't chance against the constant choking anxiety of being found out by her parents. So she had ventured out into the world once more, finding everything changed and wrong in her absence. Loved ones missing, the world crumbling in black-goo mess, Ascendeds rising left and right in a turn of events that turned everyone against each other.
To say Evie needed guidance was an understatement.
She finds herself in the Temple, the stifling silence as oppressive as it is comforting, eyes drifting away from everyone else inside and awarding her anonymity she desperately needs in this moment. Evie sinks onto one of the empty pews farther from the altar, silt-stained hands gripping tight to the back of the one in front of her to try and still the shaking of them. It feels like a slight against the Gods she was raised to revere, to be sitting here seeking guidance when they would sooner turn a blind eye to her entire existence. Still, she bows her head, fiery hair falling in a curtain to conceal her face as she squeezes her eyes shut and breathes shakily.
Please, I can only do so much. I can't heal this, I can't face this war brewing. How am I supposed to survive, to help others survive with this cursed magic, when I can't even hear your voices?
Of course nothing comes as she remains seated there for countless minutes, trying not to hope but failing. Someday she will stop feeling like a failure, like a broken girl, but today is not that day. Instead she stands with a wobble, pushes her hair back and fixes her face into something serene and far-away. And only then does she recognize the shock of matching hair on the man near the altar.
Evie isn't proud to say she hesitates. They are likely the worst twins in existence, and they both have bitter grudges and threads of malcontent that stain and entangle every interaction they have. But...she hasn't seen him in so long. Understandably, considering she'd been hiding in the one place Sam would never go. But as much as he infuriated her, as much as his clueless words stung, he was still her brother. Family.
Before she can consider it further her feet are pulling her forward towards the altar, towards her brother. Even from the side angle she gets as she nears down the aisle, he doesn't look good. Evie hesitates for just a moment, instincts still torn, before she smoothly sits beside him. Facade firmly in place but thinner than normal in her own moment of weakness, she slings her arms over the back of the pew and crosses her legs without taking her eyes off the altar.
"You look like hell," she comments idly, though the sharpness is almost entirely missing and it falls pretty flat on delivery. If he cared to look he would see her own freshly reddened eyes, the blotchiness of her cheeks, but Sam had always lived in his own little me-me-me world. Why would he care about his twin now? "What are you here for?" It skirts around multiple unasked questions: what's wrong? Do you still hold faith in these Gods? Do you really think any of this, any of us, can be fixed?
