Lion Head Mesa noctilucent

why — her mind wished to press. to hear the words pass from nazli's lips itself. to force that voice to quiver with truth. it was ugly and becoming. not the girl she had been when they stood side by side. yet it was the woman who had come to stand in the place she had struck her own father from.

after that father had wedged a canyon between these two girls and had made them both grown beyond their years.

taking a life, giving a life. they aged in different ways on different paths. set there by the same hand.

what was there to say? no words could fill that canyon enough to make them familiar again. nothing would ever bridge the gap enough in just voices. actions. deeds. she knew these things would fill that space. yet still there lingered the question of what.

come with me, she did not seek to harshly command, but nor did she wish to hear a no. it was ugly to be on the other end of this power dynamic among the people of akashingo and only now did she understand it in full.