along the way

Anthea’s confusion only grew as Mercury repeated back the name of the continent she was raised on as if it was the most familiar name to him and not the name of some far flung place. He said it as if it was some place he missed and not somewhere that he had only just heard of now for the first time. Even when he mentioned how he had never told her where he came from, she still couldn’t put the pieces together herself. It was such an impossibility and such a slim chance that it never once crossed her mind that it was even possible that he was also from Illious.

She looked at him with befuddled disbelief as he stepped closer and told her about the volcano and how it had wiped out everything and how nothing was left of her homeland. At first her disbelief and confusion simply made her shake her head with a quiet scoff, replying, ”What? That’s ridiculous. How would you even know that? It’s not like you’re from…” That’s when it finally clicked, the sincerity and seriousness in his expression breaking through her disbelief and making her see the truth.

She was quiet and stunned for a moment, caught somewhere between the reality of what she was hearing, the sudden grief of knowing there truly was nothing to go home to now, and the unexpected joy of finding herself with someone from Illious despite the incredibly slim odds. Anthea fell back on her haunches, her hind legs giving out with the shock of it all, her eyes wide and ears falling back as fuzzy, broken memories started to stitch themselves back together again. “That… The earthquake wasn’t an earthquake. The smoke… It was the volcano, wasn’t it? That’s where the fire started. It wasn’t a wild fire it was… Oh gods…”

"Anthea Dásos"