Families are ruined every day. She has seen far more than her fair share of such tragedies. Death parts lovers, mothers, fathers, children without remorse. Without feeling and often times without warning. It is so easy to become calloused when watching the world through so many eyes, when seeing the cruelty that abounds, the injustice and insensibility of so many lives being torn asunder. To her, Canaan’s fate had been kind. Perhaps he had not deserved such a thing, had not deserved to be kidnapped for the crimes of his mother.
But he cannot change his parentage, cannot change to whom he had been born, no matter how much he might wish it. But what he sees as cruelty, as utterly awful and unjust, she sees just the opposite. So many children never even know their parents. His would at least know him, even if it is rather later than he might have hoped.
Still, she does have a heart, even if it is buried behind layers stone and forced dispassion.
She does not answer him immediately. Instead she turns her gaze to him, shifting from sea to man until she can study him with the intensity one might study a previously unknown specimen. After several long minutes of silence, she shows him. Reaching for his sight with gentle fingers, she replaces it with another’s vision, one from weeks past. His children, their birth, their first breaths, their first steps. She shows him this because, despite everything he thought he knew about her, she is not trying to be cruel. His only crime had been his birth.
“Were your mother the parent you wish to be, you wouldn’t be in this predicament,” she finally responds, her voice soft as she turns her gaze back to the sea, leaving his sight once more his own. She does not answer his second question though. Feels no need to. How she can be at ease with her actions is not something he would ever understand. Nor is it something she has the time nor inclination to explain.
After another long pause, her gaze still upon the ocean, she sighs. “At the dawn of the day following tomorrow, you are free to go.” Her voice is faintly distant as she makes the declaration. “Do not leave before then. You will not like the consequences should you try.”
With that, she turns to go, before pausing to glance back at her soon to be former captive. “Once you go, it wouldn’t hurt to have a discussion with your mother.” A faintly amused smile curves her lips as she turns once more, leaving him to his thoughts.
Soooo, from here I figured Heartfire could basically go hunt Ellyse down? <33