how have you been

Illusion treaded the familiar path back to the gorge, her mind worked like a well-oiled machine of detached calculation. She had ventured out alone, stalked her prey, and sated the hunger that gnawed at her insides. The hunt had been a success, yet the victory over the deer fawn brought her little satisfaction. It was monotonous. She had done as she always did, a careful dissection of her favorite organs and meats, then tinkered with the rest while she ate. A bit of amusement, to say the least.

As she crossed the Dancefloor, her steps faltered, a flicker of recognition lit up her otherwise indifferent silver eyes. It was a disturbance in the carefully curated facade of her being. Her lips curled, a splash of anger washing over her as the girl held back a hiss. Her first thought? Did Cadaver know yet? Would she be fighting for his attention again? Already when he spent most of his time away, out of her reach? What about when they grew older, would he wander even further away? Her calm, cool composure fell in an instant. Her mother, Widow, had been largely absent in recent months, her whereabouts shrouded in mystery – something about an illness. But abandonment nonetheless had rocked she and her brother's worlds.

She surged forward, rounded a bend in her grassy path, before she spotted her mother standing among the sunlit plain. She looked haggard. Older, almost. Illusion's eyes narrowed, her gaze piercing and searching for answers, a true visual dissection of her mother. She stood observing for a moment, before she announced her approach with a hum, the last song her mother never got to listen to before she’d left them without a word. Illusion’s expression was uncontrolled, so unlike the manufactured visage she allowed others to see, glacial detachment and a hint of anger there for a moment before she put the mask up. Perhaps her mother saw -- perhaps she watched the switch occur, but Illusion had little care for her slip up in that moment. Her beautiful features warping into softness instead of hard lines, her eyes rounding and filling with sorrowful affection. She looked so much like her mother now, and as she approached her first year the girl had matured some in her mother's absence and was steadily growing into an ethereal vision.

“Mother?” A sweet, twinkling voice called out, followed by a blur of deep slate and gold as the girl rushed to embrace her mother. Illusion's mind raced, a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions churning beneath her carefully composed exterior. Her brother, her beloved Cadaver, was hers, the only source of warmth in the cold darkness she found life to be. And now, faced with the return of their mother, a seed of doubt blossomed within her, and a primal instinct to protect what was hers. Even from her own mother, if she dared to take her brother away. If she distracted him. He was meant to pay attention to Illusion. He was the only one that could understand her.

“Why did you leave?” Illusion demanded, her voice weak and shaky with accusation. “Where have you been?” She feigned distress, a skillful charade that masked her true emotions. Though she could not help the fact that beneath the facade of concern lay a burning curiosity, a desire to unravel the mystery of her mother's absence. Illusion craved answers, and she sought to hear from Widow's own lips the justification for her sudden disappearance.

For the girl who felt so little, The longing for maternal affection, once a consuming obsession, had been supplanted now by a steadfast fixation on her brother. But the lingering question remained: why had Widow forsaken her, leaving behind a void that Illusion struggled to fill? The umbilical cord of her obsession on maternal attention had been cut, redirected towards a more steadfast source of affection. But the wounds left by her mother's absence still throbbed, still reminded her of what she could lose again.

illu