S O L S T I C E
and at last i see the light, and it's like the fog has lifted
You have not left your family before? His question roars loudly in the girl’s psyche, as if it taunted her with the irony of it. In that moment, Solstice knew she could balk or allow the sadness to swallow her whole, but she doesn’t. Instead, a strange realization washes over her, that in this new world she could take up any identity she wanted. In Novus, she didn’t have to be the sheltered idol on a temple pedestal with worshippers crying at her feet. She didn’t have to be a prisoner chained upon animal skins in a nomad’s tent. She didn’t have to be anything but free, anything but what she wanted. So while she could dwell on the truth that she’d wondered and wished how her life might have been different if she’d known a family’s love, she doesn’t.
“I have no family.” There is no malice in her words, only a slight hint of sadness as she grieves what might have been. “What’s it like? Having someone to come home to?” Her question is innocent enough, even as it speaks volumes of depth. For she had never known love – the love of a mother, a father, a brother, a sister… even the affection or touch of a lover.
There are those who would argue that family are the ones you choose, but Solstice was too new to this place to have begun to form such relationships. In time though, perhaps she would. Perhaps she would find her father figure, her guiding mother, her beloved. Hope blossomed at the thought of it, for Solstice would want nothing more in life than belonging and affection. And as she wonders at the boldness of her question, the girl blushes in embarrassment, hoping that he wouldn’t think her a loon for thinking out loud.
“I have no family.” There is no malice in her words, only a slight hint of sadness as she grieves what might have been. “What’s it like? Having someone to come home to?” Her question is innocent enough, even as it speaks volumes of depth. For she had never known love – the love of a mother, a father, a brother, a sister… even the affection or touch of a lover.
There are those who would argue that family are the ones you choose, but Solstice was too new to this place to have begun to form such relationships. In time though, perhaps she would. Perhaps she would find her father figure, her guiding mother, her beloved. Hope blossomed at the thought of it, for Solstice would want nothing more in life than belonging and affection. And as she wonders at the boldness of her question, the girl blushes in embarrassment, hoping that he wouldn’t think her a loon for thinking out loud.
― @Leonidas
