A gentle turn of the door handle and she stepped aside, while holding who should be the star of this show in her arm, to let enter first. If her priorities weren’t clear from that...
"I’m glad to get to show you this."
"Are you, now? One would think soone could be at least a little ashad of their presumptuous behavior."
"Your sweet wolf is only ever ashad when I don’t act on giving you everything."
My chin lowers and I look away. To whisper a weak complaint while surging by them.
"You don’t get to call yourself that..."
"Even if I’m okay with you calling yourself my Princess?"
"Even if!"
Winter light is harsh at the morning angles especially, but with it diffused by the material of the window facing the east - the large glass wall - it was plenty soft. eting the warm toned gray-beige paint.
Though the bottom of the wall seems to have so white anti-collision wall padding adhered to it, most of the interior of this guest room had lost its clean aesthetic she preferred for this... in between color.
> Helene’s design dream career knowledge knew it as ’greige’. I know there are only so many articulable sounds, but simply slamming two words together into one feels wrong sohow. Less of a harmony of parts and more of a forced mixture... <
The middle of the room held a sort of pen structure now. The kind ant to be movable and allow a child to crawl around more freely while you are busy being sothing other than a hovering guardian.
Hard flooring was almost entirely covered with zoned rugs. Woolen, high-pile, and off white... it felt like walking on a winter-coated sheep. Sothing I’d had the pleasure to do once as a young fox.
To the great displeasure of the other bleating sheep in the pasture, who thought I was there for sothing more than play. Running from them all was a lot less fun than sneaking up on them.
A rocking chair sat near the window, its wood grain stained black as my hair. With what I really hope is not more true sapphire cabochons inset into the pair of platinum-shod finials.
My mother would be jealous of the little knobs, actually. And loath the black wood for feeling like it overshadows her silver hair. Maybe I should just accept it if only for that bit of spite?
Also it’s not like gems have value beyond the luxury. No one is worrying about luxuries so much as necessities for a while...
Shelves and cabinets mounted high on one wall held such important items. Folded blankets sat copiously on the open space - and a few stuffed animals which I absolutely see as a necessity for young children.
But most importantly, arrays of disposable clean-up supplies that are sure to run short without continued manufacturing. Diapers, wipes, powders, creams. All for the changing table surface that hung nearby.
"There was a crib."
"Was?"
"It was the one thing I removed after the conclave. After I saw how he was born. By the ti he starts moving, he would have still slipped through or gotten his head into the rails. Or at least, that was my thought."
I looked toward the empty floor space above a rug section. Underneath a wooden plaque featuring carved relief of imnsely detailed foxes of all sorts. Carefully painted, curled around a flat blank space.
> Space for a na. <
Dr. Lang had made a comnt after she got hold of the Monitor ability. After she tested it on all of us. Because she’d seen how his Target line still held only three question marks.
Off-handed, not ant to judge, she said that humans and werewolves usually had nine months to decide. So it is reasonable to still be uncertain after only a few months of thinking.
But I know that’s not true.
I wasn’t staying speculative, or waiting for a mont of inspiration. I just lacked the grit to really assign him the one that has been in my heart. To admit that I am assigning him sothing I’m always scared to keep for myself.
A huff of sound escaped when she did exactly as I’d pictured yesterday. Holding him, holding . With care for now and care for the future. With-
"What do you think?"
Breaking away the mont she asks this, I take off the dress she’d put in again. My hand grasps for the plaque and I start to walk toward the rocking chair.
"Donate what can’t be used for him to the people below."
"Already intended to. But it’s nice to hear you say it."
With a brush of my hand along the dark surface and poke at the gems atop the stile of her gift, the one clearly more for than my son...
"I’ll keep your wobbly throne. It looks comfortable."
The shift cos just a little quicker than the last few have. With this annoying spark of divine energy, and without the aid of Vrika, they are not quite as rapid as they used to be because they were forcing changes I hadn’t truly ant.
But I am getting used to the feeling of it. My hybrid claws flex and I test a small straight line scratch on the wood that I sit and press carefully onto the hard floor.
Feeling that I can do what I wished, I begin to carve in earnest. A na for my child. The Lunar Goddess’s gambit. Our son. My desire for him despite all of that. The thing I wish he holds onto the most instead of discards at the first big setback.
[ आशा ]
When I finished, I transford back into my human form to brush and blow away the debris. Trying to sowhat ignore the woman kneeling beside who had asked no questions.
"Asha."
I said the na clearly and she repeated it, the syllables careful and sowhat too firm in her mouth. I let it out again, so she can say it again. So the being in her arms can hear and her say it again.
Nodding when she gets it perfect enough, but not trusting myself to look at her yet... my throat felt tighter when I try to use it next. To translate it.
Words have power. And I’ve already released it to the world, so there is no taking it back. But I haven’t truly wrapped the aning around Kyrie Voss and her own private world.
But I don’t want her to have to do what she did before. To seek out soone just for them to tell her what I an. What I am too much of a coward to say.
"Hope."
"That’s what it ans?"
"...Expectation. Wish. Optimistic desire."
I’m not even sure I know the real aning, of any of that. For unlike the poor, tricked, curiosity-driven Pandora of this world’s mythology... it occurred to too late to slam the vessel shut.
In my case, compared to the trap of a woman crafted and sent by deities to mankind... it was my heart that served as the vessel, not just so jar. Nor was it who chose to open it up, to crack its original walls entirely.
"It’s a beautiful na."
"Thank you. Please help him understand it. You will be a much better example than I."
Smiling up at Kyrie, finding no anxiety inside when eting her gaze, I felt better than I have in a while. Feeling no sha about myself, even as I declare what I see only as a realistic assessnt of our strengths.
After all, she told to be Citra. While my younger heart once held mostly hope and optimism, I find right now that I don’t mind at all that it is no longer the case.
That curious positivity that the world once gave as a gift, but my parents decided its lesser value on their own. That their Princess was better filled with constant recognition of all the world’s evils than living between them.
So what is left inside of isn’t hope. Not truly. Cynicism, pragmatism, and wry wishes.
But if there was so? Even were slivers of it sohow left until now, then I sincerely pray that my body sohow took and passed it all to him.
To Asha.
Because I’ve lived plenty long enough without it, but don’t want him to ever have to. And surprisingly enough, I smile more when I have that thought.
More when I hold her hand.
And a bit more when I ask a question that I already know the answer to.
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