table © Alaine
ooc:
wc: 500+
Perhaps it was because the rush of emotion had made her giddy, or perhaps it was because of the mental turmoil that ate away at her mind and body like an unforgiving cancer; Whatever the case, the once stern and proper lady had become a fragile thing, a piece of creamy parchment scrunched in the palm of a merciless hand, until her visage was so crisscrossed with the lines of grief and weariness that she no longer resembled that which she'd once been. When Sylvie's arms entwined with her own, the woman sank into her daughter's lustrous mocha and lavender pelt, her own frame seemingly smaller in size than that of the girl. Within the other lady's embrace, Alaine bones seemed to rattle in her frame.
However, it became immediately apparent that just the mere sight of her twice-disappeared kin was enough to bring a wisp of Alaine's consciousness back to her. The clouds that had fogged vague, listless emeralds cleared slightly, twin pupils focusing on her daughter's face. Sylvie was... Sylvie was a young lady now. Even as her adopted daughter spoke, the Apothecary was lifting one hand to her cheek, reveling in how startlingly pretty the girl had become. She had grown into the grace of a danger, much alike Alaine's own lean form when in health - Lithe and slender, with a waist like a willow stem, and eyes so violet that they reminded the weary healer of fields of wildflowers.
The collie girl was transformed, free of her cocoon at last, it seemed. Alaine felt the faint echoes of pride within her burnt-out heart. She had saved this girl once upon a moonlit night, and now, at last, her beloved Sylvie was here to save Alaine from herself.
"I don't... I don't remember, Sy. I'm just so tired..." The woman's eyes glazed again, but the dangerous fog did not return. She felt numb, as if there was some great an horrible pain waiting just around the corner, but so long as she remained in this state of floating and of half-existence, it would stay at bay. "Just... So tired..." It had been too long since she'd slept healthily, and it seemed as if the past 14 days were catching up with the woman in one great rush. There was something... Something she had to ask... Something Sylvie had to know...
But her mind was just so muddled, she couldn't think straight. Besides, Sylvie had that look on her face; a look that was so alike the one that Alaine had pulled at her when she was young, had the healer been in her right mind, she might have laughed aloud.
It was going to take some nursing, but Alaine would survive this, as she had survived all things. Although small and fragile in appearance, the woman had a knack for existing; A stubborn fist that clung to life, no matter how desperately she sometimes wished to let go. However, with health would come her memory, and with that would come the pain - Sylvie had a difficult path before her if she wished to pull her foster-mother back from the brink.
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