Emberwood i don't know how to love anything without sinking my teeth into it

Questions swirl through her head without words, almost forming and falling out of reach. She should be overwhelmed, panicked, anxious... it all slides right off and disappears. Lotte appears so poised and proud and her beauty is beyond comprehension.

”I’m not?” she questions, resisting the urge to swipe at her face and feel for herself. The sensation is strange but she blinks a few times and shakes it off, then turning to look at the stones in various colors. She moves back toward the aspiration and takes a step. The circle doesn’t move. When she slips over the barrier, the fog wisps back and forth with the disruption but falls into place afterward. ”I’m sorry, Mama,” she whines and cranes her neck forward a little, slowly slipping into the fog as if she’s scared to touch her.

”I wanted to protect home. I thought if they knew, they’d... I don’t know,” she tries to explain. She struggles to formulate the thought, let alone the words. She’d chosen part of her middle name so that it was still her, devoted to her family. To Teaghlaigh. But it is no more and the allegiance has long since severed, leaving her frayed and floating in the wind. The girl falls silent, tears welled in her ears as she looks to her mother for the story.