Hushed Willows Every day I've got a smile where my frown goes

For a time Reverie stayed there, unwilling to part from Jakoul's daughter. She thought again of that day at Swiftcurrent Creek. She thought of Blossom, and of the children she would have with Boone. None of them had chosen the lives given to them. No one could choose how their own life began.

But someone had made that choice. She had made it, as much as Jakoul and Akavir had, and now Boone would choose it with her. That choice brought responsibility, accountability, something that Reverie had been slow to learn herself though the concept had always lingered heavily over her. But she had learned. She'd learned to choose someone else over herself and her whims, to look to the brightness of her daughter's eyes rather than the dark circles beneath her own, to always try to be there and be loving even when she felt neither of those things. In many ways Reverie had always been, in her mind, the main character of her own life. But having a child changed that.

She wished that Mae's parents had felt the same way. But they didn't, and wouldn't; Jakoul was gone and Akavir immovable, unsympathetic. If he ever knew that Reverie now harbored his daughter, surely he would only hate her more for it. Reverie was beyond caring. Here was his daughter at death's door, suffering alone so far from Swiftcurrent Creek...

Fuck him, Reverie seethed to herself. Eventually she would part from Mae in search of @Boone.