"So these spider shifters. Eight legs, weaving silk, and they willingly made clothing for the foxes?"
"They were usually happy to make clothes for anyone. They loved the challenge of asuring and architecting perfection draped over all forms... with an absurd amount of pride in their craft."
Edgar’s laugh was warm. The sort that made the room feel smaller - or your distance to the person closer - in the way that good company often does. He’d taken to asking about my world with an unhurried and genuinely interested sort of curiosity.
"I rember one ti the royal tailor even asked if I would consider starting so business just so he had access to a new set of requests for uniforms. A spider silk garnt from him was considered one of the highest honors you could be gifted, but well, he was reaching out to everyone just so he had more and varied work."
"Sounds like a person who really loved what they did."
anwhile, Zoé had not moved from the corner of the room for nearly an hour. Her knees were still drawn up in the chair she’d taken after I insisted I would be fine on the floor.
She hadn’t interrupted once with her chin just resting there. But I think she’d stopped breathing a few tis at my descriptions. Especially the size of our snakes.
"Perhaps. I think it was just soone being frustrated that they weren’t getting what they wanted."
Asha chose that mont to stir in his lap, with a small wling sound that notified of his hunger. That rapidly increased because he seed to realize he was not with . Considerably less patient than any clock, even if his timing is as reliable.
"Sounds like a cue to attend to your little prince."
"Oh, we are not calling him that. Out loud. But thank you for saying it so that I know to ban my pyārī from doing so."
Holding him myself does lower the volu of the next sounds, but he starts to try and make it to the ’food’. I’m forced to stuff him in the carrying pouch and endure the sounds.
> Perhaps I should have requested Kyrie empty her Stash slot so I could summon him a freshly prepared al no matter where I am. It feels like there is always a better, more tily use for such a limited ability. <
"Alright. This is it for today, I probably won’t co back down. But it was a pleasure to talk to you and I’ll try to swing by as long as I do not find reasons to be so busy tomorrow."
Despite announcing that, I paused instead of retreating - because Edgar’s face had taken on that expression. The one old people get when they are about to say sothing they’d been holding onto.
"Citra."
"Yes?"
"Can I tell you sothing that I learned through my wife? Taught to in how she lived."
"...Of course."
I hadn’t thought I’d genuinely be able to leave a visit with him without receiving so kind of boon of wisdom. At least, beyond calling a foolish girl for insinuating that taking his key to the cabin was wrong.
"My dha was a linguist. A volunteer. A daughter who’d been disowned. A veteran’s wife. A woman who loved even the terrible Bollywood films with a passion that I found baffling and wonderful."
His hands folded over the spot where Asha had been laying. Clouded eyes aid sowhere past , toward whatever version of Her that still lived in his mory. No doubt sothing like my mindscape, ford so clearly that blindness couldn’t ever touch it.
"None of those things were roles she put on and took off so cleanly. She didn’t stop being a scholar when she was being a wife. Didn’t stop being soone’s forsaken daughter when she was laughing at our children’s antics."
"You seem like you are attempting to make a point to . What is it?"
"No, I’m just talking about her. How she was all of it at once, always. The burden of it and the joy of it, all tangled up together. I learned that you can choose what you put into a role, but that a role doesn’t choose what you are."
Despite his dismissal, I can tell that he ant it as advice in his own way. Because it clicked and splashed within like the best of all guidance. A tossed stone finding its place in a lazy, stuck river’s bed... and sohow making the entire damned current flow quicker.
Sitting on this often useless slab of Composure, my mindscape still looks like an everblooming field of flowers. Like a little hideaway that refuses to acknowledge the truth of the winter outside.
> All of it at once. Not choosing between aspects of what I can be. Not considering myself defined by the labels. <
A royal who commands from on high, a Chosen who walks alongside the masses with her own divine story, and the simple mother who feeds her son and cares about nothing else.
I was really concerned with picking just one for everyone to view as. But that’s silly, isn’t it? That’s a viewpoint enforced in because I had to portray myself as Princess Citra Lomdi at almost all tis.
Citra... Citra Voss is...
"Edgar. I had honestly been thinking about returning dha’s dupatta to you."
"Had you been?"
"Yes. I was afraid I might ruin it and that sothing so precious to your mory of her deserves better than what it looks like my life might put it through. I’ve changed my mind. I’ll keep it. And I’ll wear it when it matters that I do."
Asha’s patience ran out entirely as I clasped my hands together and bowed - the wling beca a proper tiny growling demand. Zoé scrambled to her feet as if the sound was causing her distress and went ahead to the door.
> Or maybe the silly girl is trying to act as a shield again... <
"I have to go attend to this small tyrant. Zoé, you can stay here on this floor if you’d like. Or find your own way back down. You know the building now and have my full permission to explore it."
I wanted to tell her to just bring her family mbers up here. But whatever their issues are, I don’t think they would be solved by that alone. Besides, I’m sure Claire offered and there were reasons that soone refused it.
"I think I’ll... stay here a little while? If that’s okay, Mr. Miles."
"I’d welco the company. And I’m curious what it’s like."
"...What *what* is like?"
"Well, I just heard about another world. But I haven’t heard a lot about being a young werewolf in this one. If you’d like to talk about it."
Zoé’s dark brown eyes glowed strongly before they softened into sothing close to relief. Likely at the presence of another adult who knew what she was - and simply didn’t care. This one being a human surely makes all the difference.
"Well, as much as I hate to say it I think I’m not needed here. Enjoy your chatting but don’t lose track of ti, hm? And ssage your mother back already."
"Wait, how did you know-"
I stepped out and closed the door behind with my heel. Smiling as lightly and freely as any mont all day. At least so far.
> Upset children avoiding the parent that upset them. How did I know? Like I don’t have the mories of two lives, pfah!
Reviews
All reviews (0)