It didn't occur to Raven how angry he had gotten in the last few hours, the tension building within him as every muscle clenched, his jaw tight, until he had the opportunity to release it. The situation hurt, it was painful, but more than that it was infuriating, to see those gathered, in shock and mourning for what they had lost, or didn't realize yet that they had lost.
Or what they still had.
She looked just as bad as the rest of them, but seeing that head of red hair crested like a sunrise in his periphery, drawing a jerking reaction from him as his heart pinched with the longing of someone who wasn't here, the guilt for the person that actually was.
His footsteps were soft as he approached, and he crouched to put himself on a level with her. "Are you all right?"
It was an absurd question. None of them were all right, but it was the broach of what might have been, the nudge to usher in some semblance of normalcy. This was no gala, no open bar with a plate of spaghetti here in the cavern, only the sobs and sniffles of all around them..
"I've found Chad, they're here, they - "
His throat began to tighten, flicking his eyes downward to avoid looking around, as though to reassure him that what he was saying was true. He didn't look up as he continued;
"I...know that it's a lot, to ask anything of you, but if you're able, don't leave them. Don't leave them alone, they're - " tighter now, as though pressing the words back down into the cold stone pit of his gut, "They're family. And they care about you."
And the implication that came with that.
What was the beloved of a loved one, then?
“You take care of them, and I’ll take care of those who put us here.”
--from a foggy daydream, she awakes, jolted by a deep red hue. This even though she's looked for Minerva already and never found her -- not the first time, nor the second, and still not the third. She still hopes.
It is not her sister, but it is still good to see him; as he approaches, Maria pushes off of the wall she'd been resting against, palm lingering a moment longer against the stone. A bit too fast, that -- but he's talking now, he's tired around the eyes, he looks a sort of sad she recognizes but has no name for-- Maria listens, waits. There's a knot in his chest somewhere, she hears it, but fond as she is of their few interactions she knows not how to touch it.
Chad. Her spine straightens a bit when he says their name, clear eyes fixed on a gaze that's fallen to the ground. 'Family', he says, like it's a knife pulled out of an old wound, like it's some bloodied instrument of a sacrifice he hates to beg her for, but it isn't -- it never was. Not for her.
If he should sin with grief, then she would dare to meet him, a hand gingerly curling beneath his -- then a beat of hesitation, a moment to allow retreat, recoil, rejection -- finally her other hand closes around it as well. And, see? Now they have both overstepped a boundary; now they are both equally terrible.
"But you forgot someone," she finally answers, warmth not in the sun shining overhead, but the rumble of the hearth as night falls: a quiet, yet unwavering thing. It has always been her answer to a penitence that breaks her heart.
"Take care of yourself, too. Okay?" There lays a soft insistence in her voice, a swell of her heart. "You're family. And they care about you." Hands tighten almost imperceptibly around his, and in bowed head see someone else, someone yet to come back home. "You have to remember that, too."
A fracture in her voice, nearly imperceptible; she heals it with a breath, palms unfurling.
"Actually," Maria begins anew, head playfully quarter-turned, tone ringing bright, "I don't think you asked much at all!" Peeking from the corner of her eye, she lets it linger, lighten another beat, then releases him.
"But I'll do my best. I promise." Her gaze slips away to her staff, cracked but still functional for now. It is a different promise, one she must still uphold, but that's okay, isn't it? After all, they are so well loved. On her lips, a smile curls and blossoms.
"Hee hee... you know? I want to see them happy." And for them, that picture includes you.
