Dragoncrest Cliffs and maybe in a year i will not feel like a bad queer

portia has been a more-or-less constant figure in her life and as far as blix is concerned, she is family, both literally (as mother to her cousins-slash-siblings) and figuratively. but she has not spent much time with her. after all she has been young and busy with her youngness, her friends her own age. as commander, though, the dynamic is different -- you know that funny moment when the adults in your life no longer feel so distanced from you -- blix is a peer, now, not a child. 

the revelation is not so immediate or strange as she once imagined it might be, though it does carry a certain melancholy. none of this registers in the moment, however, as she smiles at the fisa. "hei, portia -- i'm doing well," she answers politely, "how are you and the kids?" it doesn't really occur to her that dalia's departure must be something sad for her parents, especially after sirio's... sirio. in the midst of everything else that's happened, her cousin's absence has gone unfelt -- they were never as close as blix meant for them to be, after all.