i want to teach you a lesson in the worst kind of way
still i'd trade all my tomorrows,
“From you and those close to you.” She hears him say, and she wants to roll her eyes. “That’s vague.” She replies sarcastically before tilting her head as he expands, wondering where he believes he might know so much about her. And when he opens his mouth, she listens to each and every part — of Bastien, of Kiada, but it’s the comment about Hotaru that particularly gets under her skin.“Bastien has his own hobbies, his own duties. But Hotaru? She will always mourn those she lost. Because when you lose a child, Loren, there’s never a day that goes by that you don’t mourn for them.” Alright, so it got under her skin. A secret of hers, a child lost in a prison cell years before her arrival. A death she had been blamed for. “And at the end of the day there’s nothing anyone can do about it. You can’t bring them back. So how are you supposed to help someone faced with that? You can’t.”
But when it comes to Kiada, he’s right. It wasn’t this version of her. She’s made strides to prevent it. She’s worked hard to be someone else, unable to be swept away by men that want nothing more than a womb for children. Like how Zariah wanted her to be. Her lip curls as she glares up at him, now. “You’re right. That wasn’t me. And it won’t be. Because I’ve married a painter instead of a King. I can’t have children. I have my friends and my family that know I would do anything for them.” She snaps in what seems like two predators sizing each other up. “Don’t sit there and pretend to know that other version of me. You weren’t there. You get this version, so talk about this one.”
for just one yesterday
the
PeNuMBRA
