along the way

Anthea watched she salmon leaping by, but she was only half focused on the fish by now. Mercury's questioning about her past had her thoughts drawn back into themselves, contemplating the "what ifs" and the "could have beens". When he questioned her about what she would have done if the meeting had gone through, she chuckled a bit with a small shake of her head. "I... don't know. I haven't thought about that." She paused for a bit, watching a couple more fish fly by over the edge of the water fall, waiting and hoping that a salmon might come within their reach. "I suppose it would have depended on what kind of man he ended up being," she finally added after some thought. "It's hard to think back on it and say one way or another for sure, you know? I know my father was just doing what he thought was best since he wanted to make sure I found someone and didn't feel confined just to our small piece of the continent, but it just seems like there could have been such a better way of handling it."

Anthea shrugged again and lifted her eyes away from the water for a moment, looking up and out through the cedar forest around them. "It's weird how different Auster feels," she mused thoughtfully, a little frown crossing her lips. "I guess back then I just thought a forest was a forest so how different could somewhere else really be?" She chuckled again and glanced toward Mercury with a grin. "I couldn't have been more wrong, I guess. Auster just feels so much different than Illious, but I can't really explain why."

"Anthea Dásos"