Lynx had never imagined that she would find herself in the center of such a loving family.
She would have never imagined that she would soften before the doe eyes of a beautiful daughter, feel the barest flutter of butterflies in her stomach when her daughter’s father came up her side—something soft and feminine giving as she closes her eyes, leaning into the teasing touch. Suddenly, she is too tired, too content, too everything to fight it fully and she lets her lips curve, takes a deep, shuddering breath.
Fox’s teasing words make her drop her lashes, her harsh face still pretty, the ivory and onyx eyelashes covering eyes of icy blue and molten red. “Her mother has you fooled, Fox.” Her voice is quiet and strangely contemplative as she looks up through her lashes, something unreadable twisting in the back of her mind before she sighs. She reaches out, lips brushing her cheek and coming to rest against his own, breathing in the familiar, spicy scent fo him. “But I can’t find it in myself to be sorry that you are.”
The words rest on the edge of her tongue, the ones that would finally free her in so many ways—the words that would open up her confession, shed her of the weight of this constant armor. But she still refuses to say them. Instead she looks down as her daughter wobbles forward, belly full, and she presses a kiss into her forehead. “It will get easier with time,” she says softly, a secret between her and her child. “The voices will be loud—so incredibly loud—but you’ll learn how to quiet them, with practice.”
She thinks back to her childhood, back to the splitting headaches and fear and hate.
Back to when it felt like the entire world wouldn’t stop screaming.
How she wishes she could protect her from that.
But she can’t and she knows that so she releases her with a quiet breath, letting her fold near her feet and find sleep once more. When she looks back to Fox, her face remains stripped clean, scrubbed raw and she finds she can say nothing except lean her forehead into his neck, breathing him in and finding herself.
and all of us, we’re meant for the fire, but we keep rising up and walking the wires