Ain ∴ Rose (ex_reds113) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-03-03 22:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | plot: switch, rose red, snow white |
Who: Snow and Rose
What: Sisterly bonding
Where: Tess' ghetto cottage (AKA, Avenue 8)
When: Recently
Warnings/Rating: None
Despite what Rose said, Snow didn’t feel much different. Oh, certainly there was the physical difference, a few years shaved off as she took the place of her counterpart. And there was that ever so slight difference, though she couldn’t put a name to it, where she felt something was off about her. She wasn’t one who radiated magic or had a different form, but she didn’t feel Mundane before, and this was… strange. Or maybe she was just imagining it.
Maybe she shouldn’t have had that cocktail earlier either. But it was a quick thing, the bartender’s hasty apology for his ogling, and one drink wasn’t going to set her back.
Coming to Passages from this end was different, strange too. Paying the cabbie and sending him on his way, Snow slowed her steps a touch as she walked towards it, looking at it from the perspective she usually associated as Tess’. Once the familiar head of redhair came to view, Snow veered her steps in her sister’s direction. All dressed in a grey coat, blue sheath dress and no office to go to, she didn’t look quite old enough to be considered deputy mayor, and her youth softened the serious expression that was always on her face.
Rose was completely herself. She wasn't sure what that meant, given Blue being older, Snow being younger, and the Beast being kinder. She was pretty sure it was a mistake. And, if it wasn't, she was pretty sure it meant that there was something wrong with her, that she was meant to be different. Maybe there wasn't enough to her to make it happen. Maybe, like Briar said, she was all hate without room for much else. She sure didn't expect anyone to hug her or mistake her for a princess outside, and maybe that said something too. She wasn't sure, and she was trying not to think about it too much.
Because Snow was actually talking to her. Not at her, but to her.
It was, probably, the only thing in the entire Homelands that would have made Rose leave the sanctuary of the hotel; Snow.
And so Rose walked outside. She wore one of the outfits she'd bought on her horrible trip to Snow's Mundy world: A skirt so short it bordered on indecent, a plunging rose top, and red sandals on her feet. It was cold, even in the desert, and she hugged her arms around herself, and she stayed perfectly still until she saw her sister exit the carriage.
"Snow," she said, surprise and appreciation on her features. "You look like you did back home." Which was to say that she looked beautiful.
Snow frowned as she looked down at her dress. Yes, it was her usual attire, for home usually meant Fabletown, and it was still so hard to shake that habit. But quickly it clicked what her sister meant and pale fingers touched her face, remembering that she was different now, that home was also Home, and she didn’t carry the stress of the centuries on her face. “You look the same,” she started but her previous surprise melted once she took in her sister’s attire, the frown returning once more.
“What are you—” She cut herself off, not needing to voice a useless question and not in the mood to argue. When her sister hadn’t liked the attire she had set out for her, she had expected her to swing in the opposite direction, but certainly never this hard. The clothes, or lack thereof, weren’t that out of place in Vegas but that didn’t mean Snow was going to stand for her sister wearing it. “Here,” she said, a sigh not in sight for once, shrugging her coat off her shoulders and pulling it over Rose. “It’s still cold. And the apartment isn’t that far.” Turning back to the road she caught sight of the cab, ready to go, and flagged him down once more. She hadn’t expected to find her sister so soon, even if she said she was going to be outside, but now there wasn’t any reason to waste.
“Tess, my… other, she has some things. Warmer things.” Snow’s mouth turned up slightly into a semblance of a faint smile. “And she hates my taste in clothes almost as much as you do. You can probably find something better in her closet.” She still wasn’t sure what she’d find at Tess apartment, or how this world was working for them. But there was only one way to find out and she gestured for Rose to follow her as she led them to the cab. “How long have you been out here?”
"I know," Rose said of looking the same, and there was a question there, a concern. Her previous thoughts mirrored in the statement. And she knew right away what Snow was asking about with that what are you- that her sister never finished. In Fabletown, the daring clothing had seemed important, but even she was willing to admit that maybe they weren't completely her. She'd bought them for a reason - to shock, to get banished, to embarrass Snow in her Mundane world. She didn't necessarily want to go back to the long dresses, but she wasn't sure this was actually who she was either. And it was cold, so she took the coat and slid her arms into it without too much protest, only a bit of an eyeroll and pursed lips. But she was grateful of it in the end.
"I've only been here a few minutes, Snow." The carriage would have been shocking a month earlier, but Rose had some experience with the Mundane now, even if she didn't like it. She just walked toward the yellow carriage, falling into step easily beside the sister that looked so much like she had before leaving the Homelands. "Tess," she said, repeating the name. "Mine's Ainslie, but I hope she doesn't stay long." Rose had been through plenty of Mundane people, and she didn't actually expect any of them to stay. She smiled when Snow said Tess hated her choice in clothing. "You always had terrible choice in dresses, Snow," she told her sister with a smile that was more reminiscent of their childhood than anything had been in a long, long time.
Snow shot her sister A Look but there was little heat to it. Centuries of being The Fairest made her a woman who was more than a little at ease with her looks, and her sense of style. She looked good, and she wasn’t going to believe otherwise. But this was a nice moment, no stress, no yelling, it almost felt like they were young girls back in the forest again and she leaned ever so slightly on her sister’s arm as she slid into the backseat next to her after giving the driver the address.
“You don’t like her? This Ainslie? Why? How many have you gone through” So many questions but Snow never considered disliking the the other person, at least enough to hope for a new one. Tess and she had a truce, no meddling of any kind, even if Snow thought the woman was a train momentarily stalled on its way to being a wreck. “And you mentioned the Beast. He’s different? How so?” She hadn’t yet heard of a savage Beast roaming the streets of Vegas. Then again she hadn’t been there for long.
Rose made a happy sound when Snow leaned against in her backseat of the carriage. It was a sound from childhood. It was a sound that came with happy days in front of the fire telling their mother tales of what they had done in the woods. She hadn't made that sound in a very long time, and suddenly the Mundane world didn't seem so very bad. Yes, Snow had still abandoned her to go live in a castle and be raised by a king, and she'd still married a prince and abandoned her, but she could forget a little when Snow was there, being kind.
"I can't hear her," Rose explained of Ainslie. "Olive loved me, and I could hear her. I can't hear Ainslie most of the time. Most of the time, she's just feelings, and she complains about me to Peter. Peter is Faust's Mundy," she explained. "I've been through two others. My first woman was horrible, but Olive was wonderful." She sighed when Snow asked about the Beast, because how to even explain that? "He talks to me here. Not at me. He normally talks at me. And he hasn't said anything about our fight. He just flirted with me, but not like those horrible men in your Mundy Fabletown," she said, some heat and bitterness indicating just how much she had hated Snow's world.
“Why do you care what she thinks?” That seemed to be the fundamental issue at heart of her sister’s woe, what this Ainslie thought and said. “She’s Mundy. As long as she brings you through the door then she can complain all she wants. She doesn’t matter.” Snow’s list of people who did was a short one indeed, but her sister was there (usually, depending on the mood or circumstance). Their other selves certainly weren’t.
She did roll her eyes at Rose’s hate of Fabletown, her stance on caring on the what others thought changing on a dime. The aftermath of her sister’s foray into Fabletown was a nightmare and she was trying her best, that twitch in her brow a clear indication of how much, to not argue about that again. “You should have waited for Blue. He’s not like that. Or Bigby. Or me. You shouldn’t have gone there.” They didn't’ matter either, at least not this way. “And the Beast,” the more important topic at hand, “was... flirting with you?” Snow didn’t sound terribly pleased with that either.
"Because I miss Olive," Rose explained. It was simple, and maybe it was childish, but Olive had been almost maternal, fond and kind, and Rose missed having that influence in her life. Olive had been good at pulling her back from the edge, and now she was all on her own again, and making all types of mistakes for it. "Do you not care about yours at all?" she asked, and she knew her own relationship with the first woman had barely existed, but it made her sad to think her sister hadn't befriended whoever she had, after all this time.
The eyeroll wasn't as bothersome to Rose as might have normally been, and that was probably because they were actually talking, not sniping at each other, not hating each other. It was nice, and the eyeroll made her laugh as a result, more the reaction of her childhood to Snow's nature than the dislike of her adulthood. "I didn't want to wait. I was making a point," she explained, more forthcoming with her sister than she had been in years, but maybe Snow would understand this time. She almost asked, then, about when Snow left, but she waited, holding onto that for later, after she was sure this good faith was going to stick around. She had to laugh, though, at that displeasure with the Beast. "You know that Bigby's a wolf, right?"
A wisp of exasperation was what flitted across Snow’s face next. Care? For Tess? “But she’s an idiot.” It was so simple, mostly without malice, and with more than a hint of confusion. Befriending? Not just anyone (and really, Snow didn’t have much need to befriend anyone in general) but her other half in particular? “Tess coasts through her life expecting something to magically give her the happy ending she thought she was guaranteed once she did all the steps expected of her. She’s going back to her ex-husband after he broke his oaths to her,” no small amount of disdain there, “and she cares for little more than expensive things to hoard. That’s perfectly fine, but those are her mistakes, not mine and I don’t want to involve myself in them.”
Rose’s laugh dispelled any lingering confusion over talk of Tess, the sound remind her also of better days and long passed years, but didn’t when she spoke of a point. “What point were trying to make?” What point could there be in sleeping with half of Fabletown? And then there was the matter of Bigby, the question making her look up to check on the cabbie. But he was too busy slowing the cab in front of Tess’ apartment to pay their conversation much attention. Handing over cash she led her sister out by the hand, pulling her close out of habits almost long forgotten and walking them to where Tess lived.
“Of course I know Bigby’s a wolf. He saved us when we were trying to flee the Adversary. Later, I was the one who cut him with the knife to make him human.” Helping turn animals to men was something of a recurring theme in her life, it seemed. “I don’t care that he is or was an animal. We befriended bears when we were children. But he’s male, and he imprisoned you.” And from experience, those two things usually amounted to a monster. As far as she was concerned, the displeasure was warranted.
"You think everyone's an idiot, Snow," Rose said with a roll of her own eyes. Even when they were small, Snow had held herself above everyone else. It had been Rose's job to drag her back down into the mud, where it was fun. She already knew all those years apart had made Snow's nose go even higher in the air than it had when they were small. "We could try to help her," she said of Tess. "Maybe you could help me figure out about Ainslie that way." There, logic. Snow liked logic, even if Rose thought it was the most boring of things.
It actually took Rose a few seconds to decide whether or not to answer Snow's question about what point she'd been trying to make. But, in the end, this new (old) comfort she felt around her sister got her talking. "I wanted to prove I was terrible, and I wanted to be sent home. I miss the castle, but I can't ask to go back. He was an asshole," she said, using one of the new words she'd picked up while in Fabletown. The confession came with a hefty sigh.
Rose didn't think anything of talking about Bigby where the carriage driver could hear; he'd just think they were crazy anyway, but she waited until he stopped in front of a terrible and horrible building to say anything, And, even then, other things took precedent. "You can't really live here," she said, climbing out of the carriage. Her sister? Raised by a king and married to a prince, living here? But, right, Bigby. "I thought maybe you'd forgotten," she said with fake ignorance. "He's been a Beast for too long. He just doesn't know how to ask someone to stay," she said in defense of the aforementioned asshole. "He's never tried to touch me," she added, a question there, something about a memory of dwarves.
“Maybe,” Snow conceded, though she secretly didn’t think she would. Tess wasn’t a child and didn’t need hand holding. Helping her wasn’t a priority. But helping Rose was, despite what her sister might think, and so she didn’t hesitate to prompt, “Tell me about Ainslie.” Maybe all the woman simply wanted Rose to calm down. Snow could support that.
She gave a small smile as her sister wrinkled her own nose at Tess’ apartment. “For now I do.” It certainly paled in comparison to her apartment in Fabletown but though Snow married a prince and was raised in a court, she did grow up in a cottage afterall. “I still can’t believe you wanted to go back there,” she sighed as they stepped into the tiny living room. But Rose’s afterthought, a question lacing the words, made her straighten and look at her, searching for the truth on her twin’s face. “I never said he would...,” and Snow never told her what happened those years ago. Pale hands reached up to pull her coat over her and, finding it off her shoulders and on her sister’s, instead settled on crossing over her chest as she walked to the kitchen.
“He could do worse. Eat you. Kill you.” Though it didn’t sound like Snow felt those were worse than touching. “Did Faust and Quasimodo go back to protect you you?”
"I don't know anything," Rose said of Ainslie. "I only get feelings, mostly, and I don't get many details at all. She's lonely, sad, and not very happy," she explained, and then she waved a hand, not caring about the subject very much any longer. Snow was right that she couldn't worry about Ainslie too much. She needed to just forget Olive, and how things had been with Olive, and that was easier said than done.
"It's horrible, Snow," Rose said plainly, even as she walked up the walk to the dingy apartment complex. "We can't stay here." Maybe for a night, but no longer. This was nothing like the cottage of their childhood. She was pretty sure this was the type of place robbers and thieves lived, and she kicked at a stain on the corridor floor as she followed Snow to the door of the apartment, and then inside. "You implied it," Rose said, looking around the space, which was no better inside than outside. Snow's attempt to push off a coat that no longer sat on her shoulders let Rose know she'd hit a nerve, and she slipped the coat off her own shoulders. "Is this about the dwarves?" she asked directly. She might as well ask, because Snow was never going to own to whatever it was otherwise.
"He won't eat me," Rose added a second later, eyeroll and all. "I could stick my head in his mouth, while he was starving, and he still wouldn't eat me." The question about Quasimodo and Faust was unexpected, though, and Rose shook her head. "I don't need protecting. Faust can't live without magic, and Quasimodo goes wherever he goes."
Lonely and not very happy. How Rose (or anyone) couldn’t understand that was beyond Snow but her sister was dismissing everything once more and she merely shrugged. She’d talk to this Ainslie later but for now, her focus was on the redhead gingerly walking beside her.
“It’s fine, Rose.” Which meant to say it was barely bearable. She also didn’t think she could stand a night but spending Tess’ money, despite not caring for the woman, didn’t sit well with her. “It’s not going to be that bad and if it is… We’ll find someplace else.” Bigby had offered though she didn’t know what his surroundings were like. Maybe Blue had a nice place. She’d bother him later.
Of course those thoughts were cut short the second Rose brought up the dwarves. “Who told—What about them?” Her normal reaction to lash out and close off from any discussion regarding them was barely held back. This was her sister, and though she knew something, their current rapport of not screaming at each other was something she wanted to hold onto, if only a little while longer. “If you mean me disliking men who hold girls inside against their will then yes. I like to think it’s warranted and it’s not what I want for you.” Snow wouldn’t wish even a sliver those horrible months on Rose and though her tune was changing on her imprisonment, Snow still refused to change her own opinion.
As for the other two, Snow merely shrugged as she set about looking in Tess’ apartment, blankets and clothes and everything in its place but certainly not up to her standards. “You need someone. You can’t keep traipsing around the Homelands by yourself.” Clearly going back to the Beast’s castle was still not what Snow thought Rose was, or ever should be, doing. “But I didn’t expect them to stay. They didn’t seem happy signing the documents. They came for you. I doubt they’d stay for anyone but.” And didn’t Snow sound nonplussed either way? One less townsperson meant one less person to worry about anyway. “Have you spoken to them on this side? In Vegas?”
Rose could read between the lines fairly well when it came to her pretty sister; Snow didn't like this place any more than she did. Unfortunately, she had no alternative. She had no idea where Ainslie lived, and she had no idea where any of Ainslie's "friends" lived. She could check with Faust, but she assumed he was busy being Peter, since she hadn't heard from him at all since this began. Which left them right where they'd begun, standing there, in the middle of the horrible apartment. "We'll clean it up," she finally decided. They could make it better at least, she decided, immediately concluding that this Tess had no taste whatsoever.
"I had a memory," Rose explained, knowing by Snow's reaction that she had landed right on the sore spot where the dwarves were concerned. She remembered the nasty dwarf of their childhood, but she had no idea that their involvement with him (as innocently intended as it had been) had resulted in repercussions for her sister. She flopped on the couch while Snow explained, and she read between the lines there as well; her sister had never been the type to fill in all the blanks. Snow wasn't a storyteller. But what she said was enough, and it made Rose angry. "I'll run them through if no one else has already," she said of the dwarves, the statement very reminiscent of something she would have said when they were girls. Then, more kindly, she added, "the Beast isn't like that."
Rose watched all the bustle with the blankets from her spot on the couch, and she listened to Snow ramble about Faust and Quasimodo leaving, and by the end she was smiling a bright, bright smile. "You're upset he's gone," she accused, sounding absolutely delighted about that unexpected turn of events. "I haven't heard from anyone. Neither has Ainslie, that I know of. She would have been happy about it if she had, and I haven't felt any happy from her."
Snow could be a storyteller. If asked she would tell about her time in a sultan’s palace, spinning tales to keep him entertained. She could talk of traveling to the new world, or of her time hunting down a wolf, intent on making him a sheriff. Snow had a lot of stories, centuries worth, but only this one made her lips thin to a line, even after all this time. It softened, just a touch, as her sister swore her vengeance and she offered truthfully, “I already have,” but there wasn’t any trace of the smile she once had at the statement. Not anymore.
Instead she busied herself with cleaning, much like they did when they were younger. Living in a forest meant tidying often to keep the cottage clean and it was easier to remember their childhood when they were going through similar motions. She paused as she stacked Tess’ things, wondering what Rose was referring to until the realization made her sigh. “Oh, Rose, honestly. Do I look upset? I don’t see why you’re so hellbent on me warming to him. I don’t need a man. Or anyone, for that matter.” The idea of… courting, really lost its appeal sometime soon after her divorce. And while it had been… trying, during some decades, she thought herself better for it. Clearly that hadn’t changed with the turn of the millennium.
“We can look for them once we get this hovel in order. I have a few other people to check in on.” Thoughts of how the people back in the Homelands, Red in particular, made her frown. “And you said the Beast is handling it well? Well enough to flirt with you?” A beat. “What is he like, if you say I have it wrong.”
"You killed them?" Rose asked incredulously, and for the first time in a long time she looked surprised by something her scaredy cat of a sister had done. She didn't imagine Snow as the type of woman to come to her own defense. Oh, she knew her sister could be strong and impossibly firm, but that wasn't the same as running dwarves through! Rose just stared during the tidying, still thinking about dead dwarves, and wondering how her sister had changed so very much while she wasn't looking. She imagined scenarios that would make Faust proud; some of them even involved a pirate ship. Being someone important in the Mundane world wasn't terribly impressive to Rose. Taking revenge on dwarves, on the other hand, was amazing. "Fuck," she finally whispered, all appropriate gravitas.
"He's my favorite," she said simply of Faust. He wasn't like the Beast. It wasn't anything like when the Beast flirted with her. But she did have a soft spot for the kindred spirit in the tall hat. "He's like me, but better, I think. And he likes you," she said with the knowledge of a woman who knew men. She suspected Snow was a challenge for Faust; the one woman who didn't melt when faced with his charms. And maybe they'd be good for each other. Rose suspected there was something going on with Bigby, but that wasn't going to stop her matchmaking. "No one said you needed a man, Snow, but sometimes it's nice to have one." She smiled. "Just like it's nice to have a good book, or a pretty flower."
Snow's question about the Beast required thought. "He's possessive, and he doesn't think things through, and he can be very pushy. But when I'm upset or crying, he tells me everyone else is stupid," she admitted with a smile. Simplistic as it was, that was that. "He never flirted with me before now, but he kicked me out because he was jealous. He thought I was sleeping with Faust." And, Rose knew, that jealousy meant a man (or Beast) liked you. Didn't everyone know that?
Snow stilled her hands that were trying to tidy, surprised at the touch of awe in her sister’s voice. Rose tended to run the gamut of unhappy emotions in her presence, so this newfound wonder made her stop everything she was doing. She didn’t exactly regret her past action, only what it had cost her to extract her revenge, not to mention all that had been lost at the hands of the dwarves in the first place. But for now, Snow couldn’t help but feel a faint sense of accomplishment and hope, now that something almost like understanding had passed between them. Of course the moment was quickly ruined in equal measure by Rose’s curse and Snow’s admonishing, “Rose.” Well, perhaps some things would never change.
As for Faust liking her, Snow merely rolled her eyes. “I don’t really care who likes me,” she replied airily, moving between rooms. Being liked never lasted, same for being loved, and certainly never amounted to anything worthwhile or without pain. Snow had long ago come to terms with such truths, and she liked to remind herself of that, often. “Men aren’t worth the effort,” as if the Fairest needed to put forth effort. “Or trouble,” which was a little more to the heart of the matter. “I’ve been married once. I don’t need anything remotely like that ever again.”
To be fair to Rose, Snow’s experience with men also amounted to equating jealousy with attraction, though it wasn’t exactly something to be happy about. The males (man or monster, for they tended to fall in those categories in Snow’s world) were about possession, of conquest. Lust and love were separated by very thin lines and Snow rarely knew a man who cared about the difference, and jealousy was just part of the package. “But you care so much that he was jealous?” Which of course meant her sister felt the same way. Well, that softened a bit of her ire. But only a bit.
Snow could be as admonishing as she wanted; Rose was still giving her that same impressed look. Maybe there was more to her sister than she'd realized? "Why did you leave home?" she asked impulsively. "Mother said you wanted to." It was the question she never asked, but things felt different just then, and maybe she could actually handle the answer better than she normally could.
Everything paled in comparison to that question, but Rose pushed on, because she didn't want that question to linger between them. "That's not true," she said when Snow insisted she didn't care who liked her. Snow might want that, but Rose refused to believe it was reality. "You care who likes you, even if you don't want to," she added, clarifying, though she doubted Snow needed it. But she agreed with Snow about men. Men absolutely were not worth the effort. But the Beast wasn't a man, and Faust was a friend, not a man; there was a difference. "Men just aren't trustworthy," she added, but it was more tempered now that she had an understanding of why Snow didn't like them.
Rose frowned at Snow's final question, and she considered lying her way around it. But they were actually talking for once, and she didn't want to confuse it all with lies. "I thought he knew me better than that," she admitted, steeling herself for the criticism that she was sure would follow. It was no secret what Snow thought about her trustworthiness around men, and Rose knew she deserved that opinion. But the Beast had always taken her side, and for him to believe the worst of her, just like everyone else did, it stung.
Snow had known one day her sister would ask. They danced around the subject all the time, the question unspoken but underlying in every accusation of sisterly abandonment. But being forthright about the issue didn’t change her answer. “I don’t know, Rose. I’m not being coy or lying.” She gave a soft sigh as she stopped the cleaning, frustration at her own lacking memory apparent, and leaned against the doorframe as she tried to find the best way to explain it.
“I was living with the Queen in the castle and that was what my life was, living in court under her care. That was my life, vague feelings and the occasional odd dream but nothing felt wrong until she tried to kill me. And then after Charming and I married and I put that part of my past to rest, little pieces started coming back to me. I could remember you and mother. I remembered our cottage, our friend the bear.” Her lips might have turned up a bit more fondly at the old memories. “And that’s when I asked for you to come. But the space between… getting engaged to a bear-turned-prince and sitting in court wondering why the queen is looking at me strangely—that’s all empty. There’s nothing there. I don’t know why I left but I didn’t want to break my promise. I swear.”
As for the subject of being liked, Snow merely rolled her eyes once more. There was no dissuading her twin, no matter how much she tried. Instead she took the small victory of agreement on the untrustworthiness of men, though from the look on her face she was still unsure on this Beast business. “But he’s flirting with you now. So something must have changed? Or are you still going to remind him that he’s wronged you?”
Rose wanted to believe her sister. She wanted to believe her so much that it almost hurt. She didn't believe her entirely, but she was closer to it than she had been in the past. It wasn't like Snow to lie, and she logically knew that. But maybe she'd just forgotten or blanked out her choice to go be a princess? Since she couldn't remember, then Rose couldn't be sure it hadn't been her choice. She could believe their mother would erase Snow's memory of things so that she could be happy in her new life as a princess. And, in the end, it still left Rose right where she'd always been - with a million childhood feelings of abandonment that carried throughout her life. But there was less anger now, and maybe that was something, in the end.
Rose realized she needed to say something, but she was at a loss for a few minutes after her sister's confession. "I don't know, Snow. I want to just believe you and forget, but it's hard," she admitted. All those years of anger didn't just disappear, and she couldn't erase the hurt, whatever the reason for Snow's departure. "But I want to try," she admitted. And, for her, that was a big admission.
That done, Rose flopped back onto the couch with a humph. "Of course I'm going to remind him that he wronged me." She smiled a copper-trouble smile. "I sent Ainslie to the castle, so I'll just happen to be there once all this is done," she admitted, and she looked very pleased for having thought of it.
Snow waited in tense silence for her sister to speak, hoping much more strongly than she’d like to admit that maybe - finally - they could put this behind them. But of course it wasn’t so simple - hard, even she could understand that - and she nodded, smiling faintly but warmly at the promise to try. That was more than they had before.
Standing behind her sister, pale fingers starting to thread through copper hair before patting her sister on the head. “I can’t wait to hear how how he takes the news.”