to this moment

Motif heard the call of the tyrant, and shrunk into herself. She now bore a sharp, newly closed wound above her eye where the sharp claws of the Empress’s daughter had rendered her flesh. Her eyes were puffy, red, and sore both from the blood that had filled them, and the many washes that had followed to clear them. She looked a little rugged and a lot dejected as she made her way after the howl.

She wondered if she was about to receive punishment, for the way she had spoken to Venom. She had almost stood up for herself, but had failed in the end, and collapsed in on herself again. She was a failure, and if she was the last of her family, then her ancestors must weep.

She almost didn’t understand what she was seeing when she arrived, blinking in confusion for a moment, before she cried out, the first sound of joy to pass her lips in a long time, as her dejected walk turned into a run, and she was barrelling into her sister, tears streaming down her face. “I thought you died, I thought you died!”