Lost but found

Ravenna

magic hidden in the void and —

Relief brightened her young face into a radiant smile. Venna was on her feet in an instant and scurried ahead out of the alleyway and back the same way they had come, quick as a Hel. She only paused to look back and see that Noah was still following.
Around a corner, then around another, and soon they were headed straight down the main street, down the winding levels into the poorer parts of Haulani. Here the painted buildings were not so vibrant anymore. Plaster chipped to reveal a hodgepodge of timber and stone foundations, boardwalks turned to mud and duck-boards and the filth that lined the streets had less to do with the flooding and more with squalor. The faces of the citizens were sharper here, and more gaunt; their eyes skimmed over the urchin girl and tried to determine if the man that followed her was worth the effort of interrupting. Shop after shop whipped past as Ravenna hurried her savior along; the rush of waves became more pronounced, and when they were only a few blocks from the ocean front the little girl turned one last time onto a street where sailors houses mingled with net-makers and fishmongers.

Mrs Fish was not there to yell at her when Venna yanked open the door of the store. "Mama!" she called brightly, "wake up, I brought you help!" Turning to wave at the follower of Vi so that he would hurry up, she scampered barefoot over the wooden floor, heedless of the stench of sunbaked fish and mud that lingered in the shop. Towards the stairs, and then up - up up up - until the sparsely furnished loft came into view.

"Mama?" she repeated, breathless as she stared at the bed of rags on the floor, where her mother lay curled up. A glint of sunlight streaming in through a slit in the curtains turned the woman's dirty hair into a crown of gold. She was very still.
"Mama! Wake up!" She called louder this time. Still her mother would not wake, or turn to look at her.

A strange feeling started to settle in her stomach. Closing grubby little fists in her tunic, Venna started towards the bed. Maybe... maybe mama was just sleeping really heavily, and that's why her shoulders looked so still. Maybe if Venna shook her, she would wake.

— truths waiting to be spoken

Noah had to work hard to blink away the tears and keep breath in his lungs as Ravenna led the way through the slums of the Starfall affected city. His limbs were still cold and nearly useless at his sides as he numbly pushed curtains and dodged and weaved people on their way. Her little feet carried her so quickly across the dirt and sand and stone, and that made it difficult for the demigod to follow her.

He did, though, even several paces behind, all the way through the storefront and up the stairs. He gave a look to the shopkeeper that displayed their haste and urgency differently than Ravenna’s excited little yips. Noah climbed the stairs and pulled himself all in, forming as much composure out of the liquid he now was that he could. He could hear Ravenna’s little voice talking to her mother before his feet hit the landing of the loft, and the words made his heart jump up into his throat again.

Noah closed the distance between him and the girl and looked down at her mother — and he knew, he knew, he knew — but he tried anyway. Around them celestial light burst into being and the healing glistening overtook them.

no one ever tells you that forever feels like home

sitting all alone inside your head

Ravenna

magic hidden in the void and —

Hovering half a step from the still form as golden rain showered the grubby loft, Ravenna's heart beat painfully in her chest. Hope and worry warred for dominance, but though her mother did not stir, nothing in her life up until this point had prepared her for the possibility that the center of her world might disappear.

She had seen dead things before. Fish in the nets of fishermen. Washed up Hels on the beach. Bloated and gaping victims of the falling moon, inescapable over the past season. None of them had anything to do with the laughing golden haired beauty who hugged her goodnight and whispered stories under the blanket until she fell asleep. She didn't understand it. Didn't want to believe it.

But when she finally plucked up the courage to reach out to her mother, a single touch changed her life forever.

The woman slumped over on her back. There was no life left that might reflect Vi's grace in the eyes that stared blankly at the ceiling. Red stained lips that had taken on a blue tint in her last struggle for breath, a clear enough indication that she had, at long last, lost the battle with the lung sickness.

Shocked by the clammy cold of the skin and the eerie stillness, Venna cried out and scrabbled back. With no one else to turn to, she reached for Noah; trembling and uncomprehending, unable to look at what could no longer be denied.

Her mother never wanted water from the well. She just didn't want her daughter to be there when she died.

— truths waiting to be spoken

There he was, staring down at the woman as the celestial light flitted into nothingness and he knew. But he couldn't stop it. He couldn't stop her. Ravenna reached out and--

Though Noah had known loss intimately, the sight of the child's grief stirred a raw ache within him, a reminder of the fragility of life in a world consumed by darkness. He watched from what felt like miles away, a silent witness to her pain, feeling the weight of her sorrow as if it were his own. The weight of it pressed down on his chest and he wanted to take it away from her. He wanted--because he knew--to steal each hurt from her heart as the grief poured and poured and poured.

But she turned to him before he could take her pain away. She grasped for him and Noah grabbed her immediately--lifting and holding and protecting. His strong arms wrapped around her--wrapped around Korbin--and he knew, then. Noah found himself bound to the little girl by a thread of empathy—a shared understanding of the crushing burden of loss--but even more so. He was bound to her very soul, a piece of it having shared a piece of his own.

"We can't stay here." Noah whispered into Ravenna's hair as he held her tightly to him, feeling her tears starting to soak through his shoulder, and began turning to walk down the crooked stairs they climbed up.

no one ever tells you that forever feels like home

sitting all alone inside your head

Ravenna

magic hidden in the void and —

It was something she had never experienced before. Being hoisted so high, or held so tightly. There was a strength within the arms that cradled her that made the young child feel utterly safe even though Noah was a stranger still. She did not struggle against his chest. Only put her arms around his neck and cried out her pain and confusion in little hiccups and sobs that rose and fell like the glittering sea.

"Where are we going?" she wondered tearfully, when they descended the stairs and gave way to Mrs Fish and her husband, whose alarmed babble faded into an indistinguishable drone in her ears. Faintly aware that they asked questions to Noah, Ravenna did not comprehend what they meant with 'next of kin' or 'funeral expense'. Her heart only pounded in the chest, upset with everything and nothing even as she embraced the yawning pit of loss as a new companion through life.

— truths waiting to be spoken

He could feel her tiny fingers digging into the back of his neck, and he had to blink away the tears. His whole body ached with the weight of it all as he talked quickly and quietly to the Fishes. He told them that he would take her to Halo where she would be well cared for, in the memory of her parents. He told them that whatever expense it was to take care of her mother, that he would cover it and more for taking good care of her.

Her tiny voice stirred him and he gestured to Mrs Fish with one hand for the blanket on a shelf behind her. "Your father's home." Noah whispered to the girl, his tone fatherly and laced with support and warmth. The knot in his throat hardened again, and he swallowed. The shop-keep handed over a blanket and Noah wrapped it around Ravenna with one arm. Then he thumbed his compass, and salt-air turned cold and sand to snow.

FIN

no one ever tells you that forever feels like home

sitting all alone inside your head