A/N: I love the relationship between Maya and Mia. So here you have it: a craptastic little series of vignettes I wrote for them. Here's hoping you enjoy. )
Further A/N: The "you" mentioned in the story is Maya.
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She was always the strong one, beautiful and smart and talented. You never hated her for it, and there was no bile in your fights—unlike the hushed arguments between Mother and Auntie, almost before you could remember. You followed your sister like a shadow and she never complained once—not in your earshot, at least, and she wasn't even mad when you broke things. When you were old enough to understand, she explained that she was more scared than angry when you shattered the old urn, laughingly admitting she was afraid Mother Ami's ghost would haunt her in revenge.
Then you were two and she was twelve and you were sobbing hysterical into the front of her robes, wailing for Mother to come put you to bed and tell a story like she promised. You were naïve then and unable to know her sorrow, to realize she was trying her hardest not to do the same. You almost hated her for her silence then. In later years you would come to understand.
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When you were eight, she left Kurain. You felt alone then, but remembered to dry your tears and smile like your sister said. She left you a card with a number on it, and you called her with an acolyte's help and just a little trouble. She was laughing relieved on the other end when you finally got through.
You realized then that she missed you as much as you missed her.
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You called her many times over the years, laughing and chattering and very occasionally dialing the number at odd hours of the night, sobbing lonely. Only once in a while. But she understood.
She returned the favor just once, sometime in August, tears and quiet rage in her voice. It was all you could do not to cry along with her, because she was the strong one, the one who never cried no matter what.
To you she was a lesser Goddess—smiling cryptic and defending the weak with her golden words.
Pearly asked you what was wrong after you hung up the phone—two hours after the call was placed, and it was time for morning chants. You said something about your sister's Special Someone getting hurt and she understood, three-year-old romantic idealism.
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When you turned seventeen, you left Kurain yourself—found a little place in the city with a plan to go to college. A studio apartment, just the right size for a girl of your age. The furnishings were spare and the walls too yellow and the nights too noisy, but you could learn to adapt. Just like Mia had. Content with thoughts of your sister, you pulled the covers over your head and tried to fall asleep.
She called you again a few nights after you'd settled in, and there was a vague smile in her voice. She had a request—a simple request, something about her work, and it really was the least you could do.
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She was gone.
She was gone and if this was loss, you could not comprehend the grief that would come after. The shock hadn't worn off, would never really wear off, and you were numb—you barely looked up when they snapped the handcuffs on your wrists, could barely speak at the questioning. The other prisoners were silent at worst, never bothering to ask you the time of day, and you supposed you were grateful. What would you have told them?
You were not entirely sure of this "Wright" man—couldn't tell if he was real or a figment of a grieving mind. But he was there at the worst of it; he couldn't hold your hand through the reinforced glass, but his words were oddly comforting all the same.
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Time passed; you mourned and moved on as best you could, though you never could shake the feeling that she'd come walking through the door at any minute. You felt her in the little things—in absent-minded days at the office; in coffee, bitter edge dulled by milk and sugar; in a carefully-repaired urn, scarred and pitted and flecked with pink. In papers you dug out, rescued from the locked bottom drawer of her desk. In newspaper clippings of suicides, blackmails, poisonings all folded neatly in their files. In old court documents, transcripts from her first cases. In the photograph of a smiling young redhead, inexplicably crumpled and with a pushpin shoved angrily through the middle.
The first time you saw her handwriting in a stray margin, you almost started crying again. But Pearly was watching over your shoulder, and Nick in the next room swearing at the computer. It would be selfish, you reasoned, to make them suffer.