She stayed near Zoe, always near Zoe. As close as she could get, even. It had always felt safe and warm and comfortable snuggled beneath her sister's wing, but as the time passed without seeing Momma or Daddy it became a safety that she desperately needed. She clung tightly to her sister's side.
She hadn't slept much.
Zoe was the one to get her on her feet when all she wanted to do was curl up and hide until Daddy came for them. He wasn't hurt, he couldn't be. He would come for them. He had to.
"Come on, Zyn. Let's take a little walk."
She didn't want to. She wanted to cry. But she followed, getting her legs beneath her and rising up ungracefully. When Zoe's wing was lifted in an offering, she immediately slid in next to her, tucking as close to her as she could with their shoulders and hips brushing. Zynnie touched her neck with a little kiss, grateful that she at least had her sister with her. They were inseparable.
"Zynnie, do you see?" Zoe stopped suddenly, all her attention forward as she studied something in the distance. Zyn wasn't paying much attention, she preferred to focus on her sister. It was the only good left in her young life just then. The strain in Zoe's voice finally coaxed her to look too, though. Daddy?? And a frightening stranger that had her hesitating a beat as Zoe charged forward.
For once, she was completely alone and it wiped every bit of confidence from her. She ducked her head, walking so cautiously forward only because that was the direction her other half had gone. She felt anxious and uncertain, such foreign emotions for the vibrant, sassy girl she'd been before their family had split up and broken apart and vanished.
Zoe checked to make sure she'd made it safely across the water, and she nodded quietly at her. She was fine. Zynnie still lagged behind though, and hunched her little shoulders even more as she drew nearer to the sickly beast-man with - oh god, was that bone? Coming out of him?? That couldn't be good. He was probably dying. He certainly looked like death.
She shied away from him in an arching path that took her around so that Zoe and Daddy were between her and the stranger, slipping in quietly to lean into Daddy and watching worriedly as the dark, bloody man watched them closely. Watched Zoe, mostly, she realized as his gaze only held her eyes briefly before he was locked on her sister.
She was too uncomfortable to even speak, even though she so badly wanted to ask where Momma was. And when could they see her. And did this man have to go with them.