hands on your knees

Cierzo was listening to the words coming from Raka's mouth, but she wasn’t really hearing. Her thoughts focused and wrapped around the concept that Karaka had introduced- that she was essentially not meant to be perfect. Not meant to be? At all? Then why had she been pushed so hard? There was no way it was possible. “But I had to be perfect.” The smaller woman’s frame began to tremble and tense, her voice coming a bit louder and hoarser. “If I had been, he wouldn’t have- he wouldn't have… hurt me.” In the end though, Cierzo could not detail her trauma, in fear of scarring the young girl just as she had been. Light blue eyes tried to find an answer in Karaka’s gaze, a pleading look across her gentle, muddied face.

speech