Redhawk Caldera i will sing no requiem

hi, mama.
teya clung to that sound, breath flickering in her throat; not a sob, not a gasp, something quiet and throttled between them.
sorana had grown taller, older. now she stood all youthful scarlet, the picture of reyes in the watered place where teya had first met him. and her mother, older also, curved with the remnants of pregnancy, reeking of baby shit and milk.
someone briefly hollowed for an exacting moment. she had waited for their reunion, longed for it. all the things she meant to say, all the ways she meant to say them, now fleeing the raven in a moment of weakness and impulse.
for a long moment, teya only looked at her eldest daughter, and did not call the babies at home with bronco siblings, not begging her as she felt they had asked killdeer. the rejection of that too would be much, and teya found she did not want to speak of them or of anything else.
"hi, baby."
she wanted to ask if sorana meant to stay; wanted to ask the girl to stay. and yet she did not think it possible, and felt that in the requesting she might damage something further.
and so she inched closer, daring at last to reach a questing muzzle toward sorana. she wanted the stories of where her girl had gone, where she had traveled, what she had seen. all this and more.
the coolwater eyes misted. "missed you very much." but teya did not want to cry, to weep; not now, not now.