Lacey
She didn't want to think about anything. Sometimes this easy life felt complicated, and she didn't want to think about it. About love - how she still felt so empty inside - about loss - plenty of that, too - about the sharp and needling fear that one day they would all be gone and she'd be left behind again as she always seemed to. Abandoned again, thrown away like she was nothing.
So she focused her attention on the newest addition, little Kali. She was the youngest, and would need her longer, would be at her side for longer whether she wanted to be or not.
"Hey mommy?" her baby asked. Hmm? she hummed absently, tending to a perfectly clean spot on that gray little shoulder, the other tucked so comfortable and snug into her side. She knew she wasn't a great mother, had never wanted to be a mother, but sometimes she was kind of okay at pretending it. "Where do we go when we're dreaming?"
She didn't answer at first, only gently cleaned her new baby. It was cathartic, in a way. As if she could do this thing, these repetitive movements, and while her body was here, her mind could go away for a while. She liked to go away for a while. She liked to not need to think about things. About Kirby or Reilly, or even her own son who still made her uncomfortable and edgy at times. She loved him, of course, and her beautiful Kylin. But they had each other, and had never seemed to need her. Not like she needed them. So she built her walls, and she wouldn't have to feel the sting of abandonment when they left her.
"How come the sky's blue? It wasn't while I was sleeping."
Refraction, she answered distantly. She and her twin had been named after scientists, highly intelligent tricksters. Until she lost her. Wallace and Dharwyn. Her Dhar. Or Wynnie, though she had only been that when she was being particularly nefarious.
She realized what she said, and to such a tiny little girl who couldn't possibly understand the concept yet, and she redirected her young attention with a question in return. Oh? And what color was the sky while you slept? She stopped her tending, her self-soothing strokes of nonsense patterns in her baby's coat, as she watched those little eyes looking up, up, up. Then her own brown eyes followed.
Did your sky have clouds, too? Maybe in shapes? Like that one. Looks a bit like brother Baddie, doesn't it? A wing, and that bit looks like a little horn. What else do you see?
