It is heavy; she notices it, too. But she cannot remember the last time she had an interaction that wasn’t. It is all she knows, now, but she should not be surprised. She had been born in the middle of a firestorm, and it had been foolish to think the lull that came after that—the quiet of her childhood—is how her life was meant to be.
She should have known, based on the stories from her parents, that life was tumultuous and unfair.
She should have known, too, that it was unfair for everyone. Aislyn was not alone in living this endless cycle of despair, and even as she watches the blood drip from his forehead and the golden tears coat the ground at their feet, she is not naive enough to think, better him than me, because she knows the next time it very well could be her. She is not immune to the cruelty of fate, but she thinks, so far at least, that fate has been kinder to her than to him.
Her sharp eyes soften a little at his answer, a shadow of sympathy darkening her face a little as she drops her head just slightly. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she says gently, though the natural flatness in her voice seems to dull her condolence. Clearing her throat, she finds herself reaching out to just barely brush her dark nose against the storm-gray of his shoulder—something she had seen her mother do, and though such warmth did not come naturally to her, she has learned how to fake it when necessary.
“For what it’s worth, I think the fact that you tried at all would make you a hero,” she says with a half-smile. “Not that I’m the expert on things like that. It’s just my opinion.”
Aislyn
she set fire to all the things that held her back
and from the ashes she stepped into who she always was