Garden song

He studied the woman, half smiling as she spoke. “My mother was your daughter, Gwenevere. She named me for him. It’s a big set of pawprints to fill.” He did his best to live up to the memory of the man he’s been named for, to live with humility instead of arrogance. Would he be seeing Cairo, as well?

His grandmother asked a question, and he nodded. “It stands. Surreal revived it under the name Celestial, which you were alive to know, I think? It stood as Celestial until our current Queen, Aurielle Adravendi, daughter of Regulus, stepped into her reign. She’s been my mentor since I was younger.”

Another step closer brought him to stand fully before the Adravendi Ancestress, a good bit taller than her, still studying her, drinking in the sight. She was the same height as Aurielle, and, barring the faint sense that she wasn’t completely there, even if she wasn’t a gauzy figure, naturally colored, one ear and one foot dipped in auburn. He knew from description that, were her sister Chrysanthe standing beside her, it would be almost like putting two pieces of the same stone together where it’d broken apart—Chrysanthe’s face was painted in the same auburn, but one ear was white.

He could see his mother in her, too. Or… see her in his mother’s features as he could remember them. The blue eyes, the auburn brown coloring, some of the build.

Cautiously, he asked, “Is… is my mother coming, too?”

Could he allow himself to hope as much?

Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Hear" ---- Think