amplifying the pain in frames and glass

Away from the bustle of the market, he had a better chance to study her. She looked… leaner, sadder, older. Something inside of him started to bunch up into a tight little knot of worry. Why had she left? Her and Halo and Warden, they had all started something for him. An understanding of what loss felt like, and he remembered the sleepless nights with Oleander, wondering if their mother would ever come home.

She started to speak of his mother, and he leaned forward. An intense expression on his face. Starving for any tidbit of the beautiful healer that had birthed him. His expression fell. Sudden, and painful. His mother wasn’t coming home? “But… we’re here. Isn’t there… isn’t there any way? We have the hot springs, and I’d care for her…” He was looking somehow up at Hazel, as if she the taller, and not just the older.

Then Hazel was reaching for him, and he pulled his head under her chin, curling up against her. Against Hazel, who had seen his mum, who was his older sibling. His voice was choked by unshed tears, and muffled by her fur. “It’s not the same without her. Without you. I miss our den, I miss everyone together. I broke my wing, the den got crushed by the treehouse falling..” he’d been in that treehouse, and his recovery had been long and painful, and attributed to a lot of his emotional distress. He’d needed her. His mother.


"Wylan Fatalis"