A M A L I A
She has never considered that the other gods, too, mourn the Old Ones, think and dream of Vi and Rae and Mort. The idea challenges her assumptions about the world, the things she has been taught to so ardently believe. Yet the goddess' empathy seems genuine, her promise of loyalty true... but then, who better to be a liar than a celestial being, blinding in beauty and shrouded in secrets? Amalia is not sure what to think, and so she remains quiet, her head still bowed, taking in this information and letting it circulate through her mind.
It is true, Amalia has mourned them, just as she mourns so many. Her songs and prayers are a steady heartbeat, a habit that grants certainty in a world steadily growing more unclear. They are a way to keep something dead alive, a promise that what is lost may some day return, even if it does not return to her. That this goddess should have heard her prayers adds new conflict to the girl's heart: part of her bristles against the idea, while another points out that this what she wanted, to be heard. To have someone listen, to have someone know, to find something in this world greater than herself and her fears.
Now that she is facing greatness, she does not know what to think.
They would be pleased. Amalia's eyes dart up at this, hope and pride and wonder swelling in her breast, bittersweet and tender. They would be pleased. "Did you know them?" the girl asks, curious passion igniting a flurry of questions on her lips. "Where have they gone? Will they ever return? Why have we been forsaken for so long?" She thinks of her mother, her grandmother, and the generations before, living and dying in Caido's dome. The bubble has been their prison and their home, their haven and their exile, for generations come and gone. "Will we ever be free?"
