Swiftcurrent Creek Like a moth to the flame we become helpless

Her racing heart stumbles frantically over itself as she watches recognition bloom over her brother's pale features, vision blurry with tears. She lurches forward as if to rush to him, only to find herself hesitating as her name cuts through the air, stopping abruptly with one paw half-extended. She sucks in a breath, finding the sound of it almost painful. The achingly familiar lilt of his voice hits her forcefully, sending her spinning briefly to a place long behind both of the siblings: Spiritlight Falls. Home. The sweet scent of summer flowers and meadow grass, the cool spray of the crashing falls, the sound of her sister's laugh and Rosalie's sweet songs.
The memory fades after a moment, but her brother remains, as real and tangible as the trees around them. Her own hesitation quickly becomes irrelevant as Jean chooses to close the distance between them himself, and she only has time to take another breath and close her eyes before she feels the warmth of his touch. The proximity clears the air from her lungs in an instant, and for a breath she almost feels choked by his scent, overwhelmed by relief and nostalgia and joy — and a deep, cutting sorrow. I found you, he says, and her eyelids tighten together against the stinging warmth of tears, because she knows that she cannot be the only subject of his search, that there is one wayward sister he will never find, and she does not want to tell him. She does not want to be the one to inflict this wound on him — not when she knows the way it bleeds and aches in the quiet moments, the way it nags and stings at the slightest touch, the way it threatens to unravel her in her most vulnerable moments. How can she put the same knife through his heart that had nearly been her own undoing? Jean, She repeats through her tears, voice thick and halting with emotion. She leans into his touch with a deep, ragged breath. Jean, I'm sorry. There's — there's something I need to tell you. Lainie — She can't make herself say the words at first, struggling over the confession until finally she forces it out clumsily in their father's native tongue, voice breaking and dissolving into a desperate whine. Lainie is dead.