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Myrika is by me!
The noise, choked half-laugh, provoked a cringe out of the tawny hybrid. She was sorry she had asked -- had been sorry long before the words left her lips, in fact, but needed to ask all the same. In inquiry, perhaps there was still some vague hope of alleviating some of what weighed so heavily on her sister's shoulders or loosening the rope that bound her nose toward the ground and kept her from lifting her head.
Her eyes roved over the smaller and slighter form. A fearsome scar across her face, thick and knotted scar tissue along her arms, and more evidence still of old injuries were new things to Myrika, but Cassandra seemed to bear them naturally, perhaps evidence of their longevity. She was not certain if she disliked the scars themselves or the way Cassie seemed to own them more. You know, she said, though her voice lacked in any scolding.
Here, she said, tracing her own cheek. Here, she touched her own shoulder, her arm. She wanted to touch the old scars on the silvery figure, but she was still afraid of evoking another flinch. Was the shoulder wound newer than her scent on Inferni's borders those many weeks ago? The thought thudded against Myrika's chest as a bird into the unseen glass of a window.
She lifted a knee and placed her elbow on it, finding her head too heavy to support all of a sudden. A tawny hand clutched at the hair on top of her head. She had not been the Aquila then; she might have followed after the scent. She might have asked Ithiel to find her. He'd done so once, albeit unintentionally. And even then, thinking of these what-ifs, Myri knew she couldn't have kept her sister here any more than she could now, not without ropes and chains. And she'd never, however much some tiny part of her wanted to in the name of safety.
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