Elena’s words terrify them both. It steals the smile from Sereia’s lips and she swallows down the apprehension too. In that moment, in that entirely selfish moment of personal reflection, the sea-girl does not see the way Elena also flinches. The dark shadow of unspoken secrets passes between them, over them, like a rising of a wave, large and destructive, coming in to shore. Neither girl are ready for the moment their wave lands and the agony that will follow in its path.
Her breath stutters in her lungs, but she listens and lets another smile find its place upon her mouth. She wears it as if it is a shield, behind which she can hide all her pain and anguish and nervous guilt. But Elena makes it easier, so much easier, when she speaks of her daughter.
Ah, now Sereia’s smile grows wider, delighted. “I did not know you have a daughter. What is her name?”
She waits to hear, even as she is already thinking on her next question, letting all the stories in her heart spill open, their pages exposed, their tales drawn across their leaves. “There are so many. There is one about a girl who falls in love with a winter god, or another about a Velveteen Rabbit… If you come back to Delumine’s library one day soon, I can give them to you. You can see which ones your daughter might enjoy most?”
Sereia laughs. It is easy in these moments to forget that she is made for the sea and for violence. Here she feels softer, more normal than she has ever been before. “I have heard that about children - they keep you on your toes.” And one day, she might want a child. To love as Elena loves hers… One day, when she is free of her curse.
Her curse.
Elena asks if she is okay and it cuts so close. “Yes.” She lies and the smile upon her lips is warm but oh so shallow. “I am just a little nervous about the date. I am glad it is with you though, i was worried about who I might have been paired up with.”
@
an unspoken soliloquy of dreams
~ Ariana
