The Way They've Fully Lsot The Ability To Understand One Another - Blog Posts

even as children, the similarities between dacey and cyrene had ended with their last name. the sister dacey remembered had burnt bright and fierce, her voice always ringing loud and certain where dacey's shook. if cyrene had been a flame, dacey was the shadow cast behind it. she had never truly minded that, content to bask in the warmth her sister offered her, but all fire had the ability to scorch, and dacey could not help but shield herself from it now, for fear of being burnt.

and she understood what cyrene meant by her comment, the difference between living and surviving. in truth, dacey could not remember a time when her existence hadn't centred around the latter, when the focus of her days hadn't been about making it through rather than living as best she could, and that was what painted the expression of hurt across her face before she could hide it. was that what cyrene thought of her now? that she were good as dead?

"sometimes being alive is all you have." came the defence, quiet and weak, as though dacey hoped she would not hear it.

a blink, and the hurt in her face gave way, first to confusion at the rapid change of tone, then understanding at what cyrene was trying to do. she nodded her head. "i would like to." there had never been a chance to meet cyrene's children before, but at least with wylla, she could now make up for lost time. "where is she?"

I am alive. That is more than many.

The words hit Cyrene like a backhanded slap. Alive. More than many. Jon was no longer alive, the third to their little unruly trio. Now, here they stood. Not that far apart, but it might as well have been realms. Cyrene still in the Riverlands with Dacey all the way up in the North. Cyrene had tried. And it had not been enough.

Some deeply buried part of her wanted to allow the heat to rise into her cheeks. Wanted to raise her voice, wanted to yell. Not necessarily at Dacey, but at something, someone looking down at them and building walls and circumstances to tear them apart.

Cyrene bit her tongue. She had grown used to this by now. Copper in her mouth, her temper caught in her throat. "Alive means little these days. Merely being alive is almost as good as dead." Cyrene would know this only too well. She felt alive walking the halls of the Crossing. But she didn't feel like she was living.

"Would you like to meet my daughter?" A change of topic would be good. Yet another chance for Dacey to turn away from Cyrene, but she would not take this olive branch back. "Wylla is rather eager to meet her extended family." It was a weak reasoning, but true nonetheless.