Qeya River fables

Beautiful? Of course it had been beautiful. Home was always beautiful if it was home. And then it wasn't. That was when Other Shore forgot it could ever be described as "beautiful". Hearing Star Eater say it out loud here made her long for a single glance of her home, just so she could have a clearer image of its desolate beauty. Was your home beautiful, too? she wondered out loud, hoping to find comfort in the memories of someone else's home.

Star Eater had been similar to her in the regard that both of them had left their homes and found their way here. But perhaps it was the detachment in her eyes, or the distant tone of her words, that told her that her journey had been very, very different from Other Shore's - though that was obviously given due to Star Eater being much older and experienced. But how could it possibly be that she had never been unattended? Never been gifted a moment of lonely freedom? Isolation could be suffocating, sure - but never having room for a choice in anything must be infinitely worse.

Of course, Other Shore told herself she was not to judge Star Eater's past before she knew the full story. But she couldn't help but feel a twinge of... something odd, maybe pity, maybe sympathy, maybe curiosity. 

But then she remembered - Star Eater had mentioned her "young". Her children. A bit strange to her, given that she could always remember the face and the love of her mother, but failed to associate it with the home she left behind. Is Qeya River the home of your children? she asked. It makes for a beautiful home.