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reach out?

[ Her heart pounds like an ancient drum, so loud the din of the banquet fades beneath it. Heat crawls up her neck, blooming across her cheeks and ears, and once again she silently thanks the mask for hiding most of her expression.

She doesn't return the hold right away, but she doesn't pull back either. Sharon sits rooted in her seat, unable to look anywhere else. It's only that quiet reminder thrumming along their tether that helps her drag in a breath. It takes a single beat for her to match Kalmiya's rhythm. In, hold, and out. Hot tears slip down her face, skirting the edges of her mask before pattering onto the table. In, hold, and out. Her hand finally moves, fingers curling around Kalmiya's with a near frantic kind of need, clinging to the steadiness offered.

She recognizes the echo of Kalmiya's emotions rising through their connection, like the tether between them unfurled into something vast and exposed. In, hold, and out. And yet, no matter what Kalmiya endured beneath the heel of zealotry, the last thing Sharon ever wanted was to bury her beneath even more nightmares. Some things were never meant to be held in the mind at all, and burning like that is one of them. ]

I'm sorry. [ She forces the words out, voice thin and trembling, lips pressed so tightly together that the color drains from them. In, hold, and out. She's fighting to shove everything back into its box—the fear, the shame, the low simmering rage, and the dark, curling smoke that still clings to the memory as if it had happened merely hours ago instead of decades. ]

[It's like ash in her mouth and acid at the back of her throat. A vile and too-familiar blend on her palate, the dry choke of fear and the sinking, sour twisting of shame. Even as she directs her own breathing and in turn directs Sharon's, the smell of smoke and charred flesh lingers in her nose. Though more visceral and violent from Sharon's end, that too is familiar.

I'm sorry, Sharon says—and Kalmiya hears it, hears her, but she's stricken with the endless echo of voices that follow it: people of every age and temperament all begging for forgiveness, seeking absolution that she could only go through the motions of providing. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Some restrained, some regretful, some desperate or even angry as they prayed to be free of their sins.

Quieter than the rest, closer, the helpless plea of her own young voice trailing all the rest—helpless because if she had to do all the forgiving, then who would be left to forgive her? I'm sorry.

As tight as Sharon's grasp is, the force of Kalmiya's grip matches it. Two great pillars overburdened by their own weight meeting in a precarious lean, each supported only by the crooked angle of the other, paradoxically finding the strength to continue standing by their mutual collapse. By that strength the burn in Kalmiya's chest is contained, the slow suffocation of a flame with no fuel. The brittleness at Sharon's side is worrying, though. She is made heavier by her attempts to hold it all in; stronger in some ways, and weaker in others.

Kalmiya's own eyes water as the ripple through the vastness of their tether washes over her, but she holds fast to her anchors. To her steady breathing, and the clinking of the crystals on her gala ensemble, and Sharon's shaking hand within her own—immediate, real, and far more important than the stretching maw of her own fears yawning beneath her like a taunt.]

It's okay, [she impresses with quiet determination, holding Sharon's tearful gaze.] You've done me no wrong.

[ A chorus of apologies spills across the tether, layered echoes of memory stacked so thick they nearly smother one another. Each emotion rings out as its own note, weaving together into a terrible harmony of pleading. A yearning to be free of the pain that weighs them down, that bars the door to absolution. And then, beneath it all, distant but sharper than the rest, there is a smaller voice. Helpless. Frightened. Uncertain.

A girl carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders with no one there to help her bear it. In a society that wears its religion like a badge, it is the children, the girls, who suffer the most. Sacrificed in one monstrous way or another, made all the worse by the fact that no one ever thinks to shield them—that this is what they were born to be. The differences between them are vast, but the melody is painfully familiar.

Sharon shakes her head. Her heart feels dissected, split open with surgical care, its chambers laid bare as it keeps trying to beat, unable to abandon its duty even under that strain. ] I know, but— [ The words falter and die in her throat, but the thought completes within the tether. It rolls in like shadow, curls around the tether like smoke, and arrives with a certainty untouched by Sharon's grief. You didn't deserve to suffer that.

It's not absolution Sharon was looking for, even as she acknowledges her part in what happened—her stupid, foolish choice to continue to partake in the banquet. It was a show of empathy—a grief that someone she cared about would now carry this weight with them forever. Kalmiya, like Sharon herself, did not deserve that pain. Sharon would never offer it willingly, and if she could, she would take it back a million times over than to ever let that heat lick Kalmiya's sunkissed skin. ]

[It's strange to be told that she didn't deserve her suffering, though not entirely unfamiliar. Stranger still is feeling that insistence. There is the raw, bleeding empathy—the profound grief for someone else's loss—but this is somehow different from that visceral pain. It's certainty, as sure as death comes for those who have lived. In the immediate, Sharon refers to the memory Kalmiya was just forcefully subjected to. The meaning, however, reaches far deeper.

Telling herself she didn't deserve the pain is different than being told by someone else. And believing that she didn't deserve it is a wide gulf further from either of those things. It is one thing to have faith in those who love her; it is another to have undeniable evidence of their feelings. Knowing that someone else truly, deeply, staunchly believes this—

Well, she doesn't really know what to do with that.

So she sets it aside. Focuses on what she does know how to handle: trauma, grief, and pain, especially that of others. Her skin still feels tender, the delicate striations of feathers on her back flickering weakly with light that blooms from within, the holy scourge of her bloodline magnetized to the vivid memory of burning.

In, hold, and out. In, hold, and out.

She turns in her seat now, her opposite hand coming to close around the other side of Sharon's, cradling the shaking appendage between hers with care and intent. It's okay. Weight, heat, comprehension, melancholy—but not regret. The shuffle of it all, organized into vocalized sentiment, thin with the emotion that still squeezes her throat.] It's not a burden to better understand the people I love.

[ As Kalmiya shifts and covers her hand with both of hers, the noise of the banquet hall dims until it barely exists at all. The clatter of voices, the scrape of chairs, the distant music echoing from Arthur's conjured record player—it all washes out, leaving only Kalmiya. Vibrant, unrestrained Kalmiya, who doesn't just care for Sharon, but loves her.

It's one of those words, one of those feelings, Sharon has skirted around from every possible angle. Love has weight. It has teeth. It's a dangerous force, one that pushes her forward even as it threatens to knock her flat, because it leaves her exposed. Unarmored. Soft in places she has spent years hardening.

Kalmiya doesn't see the memory as a burden. She treats it like insight. Like something precious, no matter how it was given. And suddenly Sharon feels bare beneath her gaze, stripped down to the bone. Like she's laid out under harsh, ringing lights, chest opened and pinned back for examination. It's terrifying, but there is relief buried in it too, because if anyone could truly understand what she's carrying, it's Kalmiya.

The tears slip free faster now, hot and heavy as they fall. Her lower lip trembles. Part of her wants to turn away, to hide that weakness, especially here, surrounded by so many people, but she doesn't. She stays. ] I am so lucky I met you, Kal. [ Her voice sounds thin, small, worn down to the edges.

She can't quite say the rest. Can't bring herself to speak the truth out loud, that what she feels must be love. But she doesn't have to. The tether between them sings with it, loud and undeniable. ]

[She doesn't mean to overwhelm or frighten. She is always acutely, torturously aware of how her expressions of feeling could affect others, particularly those she cares for. No matter how hard she tries to shake that awareness, tries to remind herself that it isn't her responsibility to protect the feelings of others, it is rote to her to navigate interactions by the compass of someone else's emotion.

But she won't lie about what she's feeling. She is owed that much. Particularly if she wants to be understood—wants to entrust Kalmiya Longwillow to the people that could love her. So there is a sense of patience, of quiet and stillness as Sharon navigates what Kalmiya has given her. Present, persistent, but not pushing. It is terrifying to be known, and it can be painful to allow yourself to be loved.

None of this will stop Kalmiya from loving, though.

Time is a strange thing in these dreams; normally the ritual for this trick would take a little longer. But she focuses, imagines the passage of the minutes, and lets a sense of that time wash over her as she briefly lifts one hand to conjure a shimmering pink energy which fills out in a domed shape over them like glaze pouring over a cake. Immediately it insulates the space inside from the commotion of the banquet. Leaning at one angle allows a view through the translucent arcane force to the surroundings outside; looking from the opposite renders it opaque. Like a lenticular, a shutter to be closed to anything else going on. Sound is dimmed. Heard if necessary and quieted if unwelcome.

She doesn't explain herself, but there is a sense of security that both projects from Kalmiya and settles into her as she creates the magical dome. A reprieve from being threatened and a relief from being perceived. A cool breeze over the heat in her soul, an oasis in which she can ease the bleeding and burning.

With her now-free hand, she reaches up to Sharon's cheek to wipe her tears, the tip of her thumb nudging scantly beneath the bottom of her mask to clear any that have gathered where the intricate accessory rests against her skin. She gives a small smile—so small, so gentle, for the breadth of love woven into their tether.] I think we share in that good fortune.

[ A dome of pink settles around them, a gentle drape of magic like a curtain drawn between them and the banquet beyond. A magic Sharon has never seen, but she understands its purpose almost immediately, the din of the world quieting until it's a distant sound, and a sense of security blankets her. A safety she didn't even realize she'd needed.

Relief makes the tears fall faster, as thick and hot as they are frustrating, and when the older woman reaches out to wipe them away, Sharon doesn't pull back or flinch. She inhales sharply through her nose, then draws in a deeper breath, enough to reset her nerves, to calm the tremulous rhythm of her heart.

I think we share in that good fortune, Kalmiya says, her smile so small, so personal, and somehow it encompasses every piece of love within her. Something inside Sharon is giving way, an old stone barrier crumbling, one she hadn't even realized she'd built up brick by rotted brick. She doesn't know how to process it. She can barely wrap her mind around it. All the pain in the world couldn't have prepared her for the ache of being loved without the strings of parenthood attached. ]

I don't get it. [ Softly. She's only ever brought bad luck to the people who love her. It hurts as much as it confuses. And yet, at the same time, she cherishes it. She reaches up to take Kalmiya's hand, holding it like a lifeline in her trembling hand. ] But thank you.

[ She doesn't have to get it to accept it. ]

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