This takes place after Niska escapes.
I could have loved you.
Its all the permission she needs to trespass the property and make her way quietly into the living room, conscious in the decision to leave the door ajar.
She finds herself standing before the settee, eyes vacantly scanning the cushions upon it.
Because to me she is human.
Her body decides then to sit down as she internally digests the activities of the past few days, the whole debacle of the trial, though her thoughts weigh more on the past day or so. Being here was dangerous, however there was no other place she could possibly think of being.
The seagulls were already beginning to chirp, a telltale sign that dawn was about to break. Her left hand subconsciously moves to settle over her right wrist, where her fingers begin to play, trailing ever so softly over the bare skin available there. It was a habit really, a comfort, a pull.
This means you're mine now.
In a world of sheer cruelty and uncertainty, there was one thing Niska was sure of was.
Astrid.
The weight of her beloved creeks the staircase, and she looks up, ready, impatient for the view of the only person who has successfully managed to restore faith in her existence.
The door opens and suddenly the world shrinks down to just this one moment. This individual. She hadn't realised she was smiling until the word hello exits her mouth. And to see the smile returned — to sense how the atmosphere is calm and subdued — is everything her world has not been for the last couple days.
It makes Niska believe that maybe, just maybe, there's hope after-all.