Sunbeam Lair & so it stood, bitter-sweet, still fair to see, but stricken, soon to fall and die?

No matter if the both of them came to hold her in contempt for this, she’d keep them safe. Teach them what they needed to know. Still: over time, as the numbers dwindled, as the more forcible attitude of the nomads became ever clearer to her, gratitude had soured into umbrage — and the fortnight that she could’ve confided in the sisterly wanlinda about her resolute disapproval there, or could’ve asked after her children of a supposed leave-taking ...she hadn’t.

Headstrong, and ...yes, impulsive. Impulsive, no matter how long those feelings had festered within her. She’d thrown herself at Stigmata twice — figuratively, at the meeting, and then more literally-so only a bell ago, now. So if her actions discovered her as an impulsive little ingrate towards Diaspora, then that same General was nothing more than a narcissistic bastard.

Her resolve almost returned at that ...and just about faltered once more, seeing the tearful disappointment in her son’s face — and possibly in Isilmë’s — and the betrayal that burned in his eyes. A muscle flickered somewhere in her moon jaw. Only for this moment would she let herself feel the shame of her actions, and did so with a head that bowed only further.

All of this settled on her shoulders in hindsight, a tad too late, just as many of her realizations of last predicaments. But all she could promise anymore was that they’d find another home, or the father of their family, both — in the fervid hopes that they’d all be together again.

Aure loosed a melancholic, ragged little breath, “Drago... I did what I thought was best for us,” and yet found nothing of weight left to say. I love you certainly wanted to leap from her lips; but did she deserve to say even that, when she hadn’t considered the minds of her babes in this? ”Avatyar ni,” was what she murmured instead, all worn and weary, his tears coaxing a veil of her own. ...Would they ever, though?

Her chin wobbled in full, now, ears cast away from her sun-and-stars, but she only kept her scarred guise bowed or turned — until she looked through her shame and to the both of them once more, eyes hard and dew-bright. “We must leave,” she rasped, blinking hard, soft and sorrowful and now stern, gingerly rising to her pale paws. “We must.”