mom's dear old friend!

Arson, maiming, kidnapping... If her mouth had gone dry before, now it was a parched desert. Makara smacked her lips listlessly before sealing them shut and listening to the rest of her father's speech. He was looking down at her from up there - and no, there wasn't warmth in his eyes, not at all - but there was an absence of cold. He was gravely serious and it rendered his words a careful shape. They weren't barbs meant to prick and probe. It felt as if, for a moment, he was truly just... speaking to her. As an adult speaks to another adult. It offered her the barest glimmer of hope. She would never expect kindness from him, but perhaps she could nurture whatever this was. Prove herself worthy.

Makara was a thinker, a wanderer, and a fighter by happenstance of birth. She couldn't imagine taking torch to another's lands, attacking with intent to cause lasting, permanent damage; it was all enough to make her a little sick to her stomach. "I will, I will take it seriously," she said, "I absolutely will." She peered up at him through her googles, her ghostly pale eyes widening a sliver. "I will do everything in my power. I want to protect our home." Granted, she wasn't sure of it until the words tumbled out of her mouth, but her own conviction surprised her. She loved it here in the north. "I will call if I see her, but... tell me what I need to do, if there is anything else I can do, to help." To earn your respect. To fight, kicking and screaming, for some little shred of what I see when you look at your sons.