I watch the city burn, these dreams like ashes float away...
It has been so long. She spent most of her days without them alone, years stretching into eternity that only shifted into something new so recently. A small baby girl could almost always be found pressed up against her chest, hiding her face, wings tucked close around her for security more than for warmth. Singe was the first one to really need her, to really want her around all the time, and she’d stolen Lilitha’s heart with those big brown eyes.
Lilitha was happy to fuss over the girl she’d claimed as daughter, found in the wood lost in fire and fear. Singe was still lost in fear more often than not, clinging to her new momma’s chest just like she was now, with very little interest in making friends or exploring or frolicking like a child should. She still hadn’t spoken a word, so afraid her voice would burn the world down around her again.
Lilitha would make sure she came around.
Today though, the girl slept curled up against the base of one of Taiga’s towering trees while Lilitha grazed nearby, keeping a watchful eye on her until heartbreakingly familiar faces emerged from the trees, so known and yet so different. Just, she supposed, like her own. Scars marred her skin, a slash through her left eye and down her cheek, a wicked old burn across her chest, claw marks littering her sides and slashes along her hind quarters from the dark god’s wolflike monsters ravaging Taiga.
The twins, though, they were changed by fire in a different way, both burning in ways she’d never seen from them before. Flame flickered to life on her skin, mimicking the way it licked their necks, their tails. Her eyes widened and her heartbeat kicked up, nervous somehow at their approach. It had been years, and for a moment she wasn’t sure how to behave, whether it would be the same or awkward and uncomfortable and--oh.
They wrapped themselves around her just like always, and she melted into the pair of them with a soft sigh, trailing her lips along flame-licked skin each in turn. “Ohhh, I’ve missed you so.”
...your voice I never heard, only silence.