She doesn’t know the names he shares, Carnage and Blasphemare. Too young to know them, perhaps, too ignorant in regards to politics. She doesn’t know anything about the Amazons, the band of women who’d lived there in the old land. She doesn’t know, even, that the world had looked much different once.

But she does not want to embarrass herself with her lack of knowledge, so she summons up a slanted smile and nods. Even if the names don’t mean anything to her now, perhaps they will someday. Even if only as her new friend’s parents.

(She does not know that Carnage is her father’s father, does not know the things Carnage has asked of her father).

“They sound nice,” she says, nodding, wearing that silly, uncertain grin. His pride thumps in her chest and she considers its shape and its weight, the way it expands to fill up her whole ribcage.

“My mom’s name is Leonora,” she tells him, “and my dad’s name is Pentecost.” She rolls her shoulders. She loves her parents, but she does not know how to take pride in them the way he takes pride in his. “My mom is like a star. She glows like one but when she touches me it burns.” She frowns then, glancing down at the soft earth underfoot. She doesn’t have much to say about her father and he saves her the trouble by asking her something else instead.

“Oh,” she murmurs, surprised by it, “I don’t know. Lots of things, I guess. What about you?”

She wonders what it’s like to have a mother who’s ‘old and chill’. As far as she knows, her mother is neither of those things. Astra had spent most of her earliest days choking on her mother’s grief and panic and guilt. Her mother who could not even touch her, who had to employ the help of a magician to see that Astra was fed. But she still smiles something toothy and hopeful, nodding like she understands.

She considers Ridiculous’s question, pressing her mouth into a thin line as she nods. “Yes, she’s sad,” she admits. But she does not allow herself to dwell on the sadness lest it begin to swell up in her chest. “She left me in Tephra with Isilya so that I wouldn’t have to feel her sadness and because Isilya could make sure I got to eat when I was small.” She rolls her shoulders and it occurs to her then that Isilya is like a mother to her, too.

He laughs at her answer and then begins to recite his list of things he likes and she watches with a bemused expression. There is a certain light in her eyes as he takes to dancing and she stifles a laugh, not wanting him to think that she’s laughing at him. “You’re a good dancer,” she tells him, allowing herself to grin.

“Where’d you learn to dance?”

She likes his company, despite their rocky start. She likes that his emotions are so big that she cannot help but feel them. Because he’s kind and pleasant and he can laugh at himself when his feet get all tangled up as he dances. She’s still thinking about Isilya when he scrambles back to his feet and she stifles a soft, muted laugh. Something shy, like she’s worried about drawing too much attention to herself. She had never thought of it that way, the idea that she’d had two mothers, but she thinks it’s pretty cool, too.

She shakes her head at his gentle rebuttal, his insistence that he’s not a good dancer. She tilts her head and smiles up at him. “You don’t have to have skill to be good,” she says, though she doesn’t really know how true that is. “You love it and it makes you happy and it’s fun to watch, so I think you’re good.”

She feels flush with heat underneath his gaze, the way he studies her something altogether foreign. But she finds that it is not altogether unpleasant, even as she shifts her weight and averts her gaze so that she will not have to watch him watch her.

She doesn’t slide her gaze back to his face until he speaks again and heat pools in her cheeks at his appraisal. She has never considered herself interesting and she doesn’t know what it means that he does. She knows that her personality leaves a lot to be desired and falls well short of wonderful but she doesn’t open her mouth to argue. Instead, her expression lightens with delight when he asks about her color.

“It’s magic,” she confesses. It is a skill she uses considerably less often than the one she doesn’t particularly want, but Isilya had taught her how to harness it all the same. She stares at a spot on his shoulder and drags in a long breath, willing her own color to change. And it does, easier now that she’s had practice. She stands there and beams, the same shade of chestnut as he is.

“Isn’t it cool?” she asks, breathless.