that's all there is
Noah is shocked into complete silence, held rigidly apart from him though they are lying quite close on the ground, at his shocking revelation. For her entire life, her distant family has been nothing more than stories her father would tell her as she fell asleep at his side every night. There had never been anyone else real in her life – it had always been Noah and Rhonen, Rhonen and Noah, wandering by themselves. There had always been the faint suspicion that Rhonen had made them all up, this magical and myriad family, to give her the illusion of a family and make her dreams and imagination sweeter.
He hums a faint bar of the same lullaby she had been singing, the rise and fall of notes that somehow means everything even though neither of them have ever seen the land that inspired and wrote it. She looks up at him and smiles through her shock, a tentative but so very honest expression. For the first time in over a year, there’s something in the back of her hazel eyes: hope. A real, concrete hold on reality and not just bumbling around the Brilliant Pampas growing flowers that only she even looks at. “I’m sure when you feel better, so will your voice,” she murmurs, but quickly falls silent to listen to his continued words.
The thought of her father is often still a raw wound, but somehow thinking of it through his lens, of family out there really looking for Rhonen, is easier. “I do recognize their names,” she says dreamily. “Papa used to tell me stories. About them, about everyone. I thought he made them up because he didn’t want me to grow up thinking it was just the two of us. I thought…I thought I was alone now.” It’s so, so beautiful to realize she’s not, and she can’t put it into words but there is a prick of joyful tears in her eyes.
“Will you stay?” It’s almost desperate, and she hates that. It’s the sort of weakness her father had always pretended he didn’t have, the emotional needs. “At least for a while?” She never saw the Dazzling Waterfalls either, but she has heard the echoes of the Brilliant Pampas in the undertones of the lullaby. She recognizes that echo in her soul, knows somehow that this place was tied into their family too, somewhere. She wonders if he will hear it too, if he stays.
noah
I'm sorrrrrryyyyy I'm so slow!!!! @[Leander]