01-28-2022, 02:47 PM
Lillibet
Stoked by the flames of both dangerous fire and delicious fear, Lillibet finds she quite enjoys the close proximity to her newest companion as he leans in close to volley her whisper. His scent is a heady, drawing her nostrils to flutter and flare.
Depends on what mood I’m in.
Her heart rate increases nearly instantaneously, though her immediate reaction is to roll her gold-flecked eyes playfully before settling back on the moonlit man with a tilt of her head. “My parents used to tell me not to play with Fire, so I think I’d like to play with Fear.” Her voice is innocent and lilting as she attempts as best she can to keep intimacy from seeping in, a faux veil to shroud the words she’s whispered to him.
But it’s the mention of the South, including his parents and her own, that finally dampens the implications in their discourse. Lillibet’s playful grin is replaced by a sullen frown, the wide-eyed brow arch pushed aside by a furrow at the center of her forehead. Fyr opens up to her in the heart of darkness, spilling the tale of his rebirth in the tumultuous sea and his subsequent waterlogged landing at Icicle Isle. She recognizes Leilan’s name from her mother’s stories ─ he had always been a friend to her, one she could depend on no matter the circumstances. He was someone safe, Oceane had said, to ask for help if she ever needed it. Fyr’s story is living proof of that.
She continues to listen with unfaltering attention as he describes the bridge of fire, envisioning in awe such a structure built purely on magic and faith. And then his story rounds off to a near-close in Hyaline. She knows no angel, though she is reminded of Bolder, his silvered eyes, and the way he can shift his body whenever the whim strikes. Perhaps he could be an angel, if he set his mind to it.
Lillibet hardly notices that Fyr has spoken about Aela as if she is gone from the world, at least not until his face falls. But when it does, her own heart drops and she takes a tentative step toward the fire-wielder, their matching ethereal glows mingling as the bygone Sylvan princess catches herself ─ to reach out and comfort him with touch, or not? Her heart aches for him and the trauma he has endured, but also for herself and her own family. She has lived the stages of grief and knows what it feels like to have your heart gripped tight by the hand of something so impossible it does not feel real. How could the South and all who lived in it be gone? How could Oceane, Ledger, and Link have been lost to the sea when they were all so capable of saving themselves?
How could Aela?
“I know of Aela,” she finally responds, making sure to utilize the present tense for both of their sakes, “My parents are Ledger and Oceane.” She considers comforting him with warm words of hope, ones that speak of a certainty that everyone missing is okay, that Oceane, Ledger, Link, and Aela are all alive and well. But no such words are comforting, this she has come to know.
Grief does not find comfort in false hopes.
“I will help you look,” she whispers into his ear, for that is all she can do.
