clarity, paint me bright like stars in the dark of night
In her mind, her mother was invincible. She was made from oceanic rock and stone, carved from the very mountains that made all of them. She was the beginning and the end, and to see her hurt, even as she hid it away, wiping her face clean of the emotion, was unsettling. Ellyse was not the type of mother to coddle her or to whisper sweet nothings or to tell her that the world was out there, just waiting to meet her every need. No, Ellyse had been tender, loving, but not soft; she had never been there to pamper them.
And that had suited Hawke just fine.
She had loved her mother for the steel in her eye, the strength to her stance. She loved that her mother was the Head of War, that she matched her father step for step. She loved that about her. Still, part of her knows that her mother would hate for her to ask about the tears that dry on her cheek, the emotion that clogs her throat, and while she is tempted to inquire about it, is terrified about the answer, she does not.
“I am practically old now,” she teases, although the youth is still so apparent in her every mild curve, in the brightness of her hazel eyes. “I don’t know if I am beautiful though.” She rolls her eyes and then pulls lightly on her mother’s mane. Hawke wasn’t as refined as Ellyse, didn’t have that same inherent grace or pale gold sheen. She was pretty, but in a much different way; she was pretty like earthquakes and waterfalls and the wild things on the air. Like the things she imagined still live in her mother’s breast.
“I like that,” she said quietly. “I like thinking we’re the same.” She liked thinking about her mother going on grand adventures, on the seriousness melting from her face to reveal something young, bright, excited. She reached over, her lips finding and resting on her mother’s jaw. “Maybe we can adventure together.”