Taking a deep breath, Lilitha closed her eyes and finally started to take that last step--only to freeze in place at the sound of someone approaching. Startled, she jerked her foot back down and stood stock still, all her senses attuned in the direction of the sound of footsteps as a face that was both strange and painfully familiar revealed itself. There was a casual half-smile on his face, a dimmer version of the one he’d once reserved for strangers. And, she supposed, a stranger she was.
He frowned, looking her over but not recognizing the girl she’d once been in the woman she had become, and if the time it took for realization to dawn made her heart ache and her breath catch, well that was hers to carry. She hadn’t expected to see him, let alone...let alone have some kind of joyous welcoming back into the fold.
Her name on his lips, when it finally came, only made her heart hurt a little more. Not Lily or Lil or Litha, and she wasn’t any of those things anymore, but the name felt wrong and a sad, aching right coming from the man she’d once called her father. The only one she’d ever known. “Romek,” she answered him with a shaky, awkward imitation of his earlier half-smile.
“I thought you had…”
His glance back at the girl by his side cut off any reaction she might have had to the news that he’d...thought her dead? She had been a lost little girl the world had made clear it didn’t intend to look out for, and they’d been torn apart while she was still so small. Perhaps she should have been, by all rights. She could understand why he would have thought it, with the dangers the world held and its own inherent cruelty weighting the odds against her.
That little girl.
In another life, that could have been her sister.
She was lovely, of course. All of Romek’s children were, with that pretty wife of his. Mariana, Marisol, Mari-something...never quite Mama, at least not hers. Lilitha wondered just for a moment how many there were now, how vast her almost-family had become in the years she’d been gone. Did it matter? Did she really even want to know?
God, this was a mistake.
He apologized, and her sad, shaky smile grew. “I understood.” It hurt, but I understood. She let that go unsaid, though. No need to put her pain on him. She’d carried it by herself well enough so far. “You were needed here. And I…” She looked away from him, taking a slow, deep breath to steady herself. “I understood that.”
She had understood why he couldn’t stay with her. She hadn’t understood why he hadn’t visited. That had broken her heart, with a slow and devastating thoroughness that had hurt more than the fire ever had, but he didn’t need to hear that. It wouldn’t do either of them any good.
“The fire stopped hurting. I thought...I just wanted to know if the rest had stopped too.” If I could finally come home, she didn’t say, because the longer she stood just one step away from the promised land, the more she understood Beqanna had done a far better job than she’d realized.
Even if she could step across the border, Taiga wasn’t her home.
He frowned, looking her over but not recognizing the girl she’d once been in the woman she had become, and if the time it took for realization to dawn made her heart ache and her breath catch, well that was hers to carry. She hadn’t expected to see him, let alone...let alone have some kind of joyous welcoming back into the fold.
Her name on his lips, when it finally came, only made her heart hurt a little more. Not Lily or Lil or Litha, and she wasn’t any of those things anymore, but the name felt wrong and a sad, aching right coming from the man she’d once called her father. The only one she’d ever known. “Romek,” she answered him with a shaky, awkward imitation of his earlier half-smile.
“I thought you had…”
His glance back at the girl by his side cut off any reaction she might have had to the news that he’d...thought her dead? She had been a lost little girl the world had made clear it didn’t intend to look out for, and they’d been torn apart while she was still so small. Perhaps she should have been, by all rights. She could understand why he would have thought it, with the dangers the world held and its own inherent cruelty weighting the odds against her.
That little girl.
In another life, that could have been her sister.
She was lovely, of course. All of Romek’s children were, with that pretty wife of his. Mariana, Marisol, Mari-something...never quite Mama, at least not hers. Lilitha wondered just for a moment how many there were now, how vast her almost-family had become in the years she’d been gone. Did it matter? Did she really even want to know?
God, this was a mistake.
He apologized, and her sad, shaky smile grew. “I understood.” It hurt, but I understood. She let that go unsaid, though. No need to put her pain on him. She’d carried it by herself well enough so far. “You were needed here. And I…” She looked away from him, taking a slow, deep breath to steady herself. “I understood that.”
She had understood why he couldn’t stay with her. She hadn’t understood why he hadn’t visited. That had broken her heart, with a slow and devastating thoroughness that had hurt more than the fire ever had, but he didn’t need to hear that. It wouldn’t do either of them any good.
“The fire stopped hurting. I thought...I just wanted to know if the rest had stopped too.” If I could finally come home, she didn’t say, because the longer she stood just one step away from the promised land, the more she understood Beqanna had done a far better job than she’d realized.
Even if she could step across the border, Taiga wasn’t her home.
(No, hush, it's perfect! <3)