06-22-2021, 10:49 PM
Had Cress raised Ledger up on an impossibly high pedestal, or had Dawn just glamourized the few stories of her sire that Cress had given her? Cress herself hadn’t known much of Ledger outside of Carnage’s prison, but Dawn’s mother had never had an ill word to say about him. She hadn’t minded raising Dawn alone - she had done it with Rhaenyra before her, when Flamevein had left one day, never to return. Cress, even in her darkest hours, had always been stronger than Dawn had ever hoped to be, and always, always kind unless the situation called for otherwise.
She wonders if her mother had been scared, or if she had gone down fighting to the bitter end.
She doesn’t want to think about it, but she does. All too often.
She also wonders if this is too much, too fast for Ledger, and quietly she begins to regret her words as his dark eye bores into hers, the golden flecks familiar - she has seen them in her own reflection, and the same eyes in several of her children. When he apologizes, it is all she can do not to cry in response to his broken tone. “Don’t,” she tells him with a sad smile, taking a singular step closer and wanting to brush her nose along his shoulder to comfort her sire. “You couldn’t have known. It’s alright.”
Selfishly, she wants to dive right into everything that he has missed in her life, from her own blunders in love to the kingdoms that she had ruled to the grandchildren that he hasn’t gotten to meet, but something pulls her back and holds her still. Your mother, he says and her heart skips a beat as she rocks back suddenly, knowing what’s coming next. The words don’t fall from his lips but the question is there, and Dawn struggles to catch her breath as the words start pouring from her.
“I-I don’t know what happened to her,” she says, trembling as she remembers the scene that she had staggered upon. “Some monster had attacked her in the Cove” - Dawn’s own adopted son’s child, at that - “and I blame myself for that, because I think she was coming to visit me - she lived in Tephra at the time and had promised to visit but I hadn’t seen her in awhile and so I was worried for her but I never expected her to be dead. The monster tore her head clean from her shoulders, she never even had a fighting chance. All Cress did her entire life was fight for a chance and for her life to end the way it did, I-I just-”
Her mindless babbling is broken by a sob and gasps for breath, and it’s a few tense minutes before she can calm herself down enough to continue.
“I went to the mountain to try and beg for them to make me a little bit more like her, because I didn’t have a single piece of her left - she was all fire and I am all ice - and all they did was take away all of my powers and tell me that I need to learn to be strong without them.
“But I don’t know how to be strong without her here, Ledger, I just don’t.”
@[Ledger]
She wonders if her mother had been scared, or if she had gone down fighting to the bitter end.
She doesn’t want to think about it, but she does. All too often.
She also wonders if this is too much, too fast for Ledger, and quietly she begins to regret her words as his dark eye bores into hers, the golden flecks familiar - she has seen them in her own reflection, and the same eyes in several of her children. When he apologizes, it is all she can do not to cry in response to his broken tone. “Don’t,” she tells him with a sad smile, taking a singular step closer and wanting to brush her nose along his shoulder to comfort her sire. “You couldn’t have known. It’s alright.”
Selfishly, she wants to dive right into everything that he has missed in her life, from her own blunders in love to the kingdoms that she had ruled to the grandchildren that he hasn’t gotten to meet, but something pulls her back and holds her still. Your mother, he says and her heart skips a beat as she rocks back suddenly, knowing what’s coming next. The words don’t fall from his lips but the question is there, and Dawn struggles to catch her breath as the words start pouring from her.
“I-I don’t know what happened to her,” she says, trembling as she remembers the scene that she had staggered upon. “Some monster had attacked her in the Cove” - Dawn’s own adopted son’s child, at that - “and I blame myself for that, because I think she was coming to visit me - she lived in Tephra at the time and had promised to visit but I hadn’t seen her in awhile and so I was worried for her but I never expected her to be dead. The monster tore her head clean from her shoulders, she never even had a fighting chance. All Cress did her entire life was fight for a chance and for her life to end the way it did, I-I just-”
Her mindless babbling is broken by a sob and gasps for breath, and it’s a few tense minutes before she can calm herself down enough to continue.
“I went to the mountain to try and beg for them to make me a little bit more like her, because I didn’t have a single piece of her left - she was all fire and I am all ice - and all they did was take away all of my powers and tell me that I need to learn to be strong without them.
“But I don’t know how to be strong without her here, Ledger, I just don’t.”
@[Ledger]