i know its rough, when you go it alone

KIADA i wish that i could say, i am a light that never goes out. He acknowledges her, and she steps slowly into the room without a formal invitation, coming up to his side around the makeshift shrine of paintings. She can feel his eyes on her, turning a small amount to look at him as he gestures to the paintings. And really? She can’t blame him, but she can also try and get through her own sorrow to tell him perhaps more stories of her mother, of his wife, and how she’d known a different but very much similar version of the Penumbra. So she kneels in the makeshift circle beside him, keeping the necklace in her hand clutched tight as her gaze slips over each painting. “I don’t think it’s gone.” Kiada says quietly, voice a bit deeper with the emotions she tries to swallow down, lifting a pale scarred hand toward a painting where her mother appears to have been laughing brightly. “Like that one. She’s smiling, happy. I’ve never seen her that happy so much.” She admits quietly. “Maybe before, when Kianzo and I were still young before we'd even met my father. She’d tell us stories of Halyven, of the good parts, one time when she’d worn the same dress twice to an event and the nobles almost died of offense. That one was my favorite.” A small curl of her lip at the memory, wondering if Rexanna had ever told Bastien that story before. But her head tilts toward Bastien then, her thumb rubbing over the gold necklace as she mulls it over. “She really loved you. And I’m sorry I was so shitty through all of it. I think… I got really jealous. I got even more jealous when I heard about Azrael and I left for Halo to kind of deal with it. I think I just wanted to have a family like you had instead of the version of her I got.” She cuts herself off as she bites down on her lip, unsure where she’s going but imagining she’s making it worse. “But… I have this necklace of hers, from the Rift when we were living in Halyven after it’d been torn to the world. I think you should have it.” She says, even softer, lifting the gold necklace and offering it to him. but i flicker from time to time.