Blackfoot Forest i'm always chasing time

mona stood, stunned, within her brother's embrace. his breath warm against her cheek, the gentle sound of it, brought alight the primal memories of infancy with him. he was someone remembered in her bones, the blood that now beat with a vaguely horrified sorrow through her veins. how could he not remember? "what —" came the involuntary blurt of her voice, before the firebird recalled he could not answer, recalled that he did not answer her, could not could not could not.
presently mona sniffed back her tears with a grim resolution settling onto the scarlet planes of her face. "i failed you once, cortland. i am not doing it again." the tremble of her lips cut away her words; for a moment mona was left whirling into the silent grip of self-loathing for not having sought cortland out, not followed him or tracked him soon after their last meeting. perhaps none of this would have happened if she had only been a proper sister.
"you're coming home with me, to bearclaw," the carmine child decided in her next breath. "come on, cort." her murkwater eyes searched the gently hazy expression in that of her brother, noting the love that still shimmered uncertainly in its depths. it was enough to set her cheeks to salt again; she jerked her head in the direction of the valley and moved off slowly, struck dumb and unable to look at him lest her guilt rise up and utterly consume her.