Stinging sunlight streamed in through the living room windows, shining upon the coffee table Amaryllis and her dad were currently using as a foot rest, warming Amaryllis's frosty toes where they wiggled inside her thick, fuzzy socks. She pressed herself closer into her dad's side, curling herself inward until her little head rested against his chest. He wrapped a strong arm around her little shoulders, rubbing his hand against her upper arm as if to warm her further.
His heart thumped against her cheek. Amaryllis smiled and turned her gaze back to the TV, where Sokka got stuck in a hole in the ground, Aang and Katara went off into a cave, and Toph became best friends with a giant mole-thing.
If she were to be honest, she wasn't paying super-close attention. The rising and falling of her dad's chest, the steady beat of his heart in sync with her own, and the heat of the sun upon her previously-chilled skin had Amaryllis struggling to keep her eyes open. Her dad chuckled at a particular line, jostling her into something that almost resembled awareness. She woke fully when Akasha came skipping down the stairs and into the kitchen, singing to herself none too quietly.
Amaryllis sat up and rubbed at her eyes, fighting a yawn and ignoring her dad's grunt of discomfort while her pointed elbow dug into his stomach. Akasha came back through a millisecond later, stomping across the floor in her new sneakers only to stop with a flourish beside their far-too-comfortable sofa. She threw her hair back behind her. Amaryllis tried not to snort, while her dad reached for the remote and pressed pause. The picture froze on Sokka's struggle to free himself.
"Where're you going, sweetpea?" Her dad asked, sitting up straighter to give his oldest daughter his full attention.
Akasha smiled widely. "McKayla called earlier and asked if we could go to the mall. Mom said she'd drop me off." She shuffled her feet, running the tip of her sneaker across the carpet. She was obviously nervous, though her previous actions said otherwise. Amaryllis wondered if it was because of how much pink she was wearing, which, honestly, was far too much. Before this, Amaryllis hadn't been aware that this much pink even existed. Akasha looked ridiculous.
"You're wearing that?" Amaryllis asked through a giggle, shifting to bring her legs up beneath her. Her dad said nothing, but the heavy hand he set on her shoulder spoke volumes. Amaryllis went silent and clamped her lips shut to keep herself from going any further.
Akasha's nose wrinkled, her top lip pulling back in a sneer, but her anger quickly turned to worry that etched lines into her forehead. "Why, you don't like it? I thought it looked good. The shirt matches my pants. Even my socks match." Amaryllis's eyes darted to where Akasha had pulled up her pant leg to reveal her socks, which really did match. Akasha's face seemed to be darkening to the same shade as well.
Before Amaryllis had a moment to truly feel sorry, her dad sat up further and spoke "I love it, Akasha. I think you look beautiful," his lips twisted into an amused grin, one so familiar to Amaryllis that she hardly had time to roll her eyes or cringe before he finished. "I might have to steal those pants from you when you're not looking, though. Pink is so my color."
"Ew!" Akasha exclaimed, sticking her tongue out at her dad, though her expression was far less troubled now. She laughed once and took a step back as if she were about to escape. "Don't you dare, dad, your big butt will stretch them out."
"Oh for sure, this big butt would look so good in pink. All the guys would be jealous of me," he said, tone serious though his smile said otherwise. "Besides, I'm the one who picked them out and bought them for you with my own money. I'm pretty sure that makes them half mine, too. You've got to learn to share, pumpkin."
"You did not pick them out and you know it," Akasha snorted. "You don't have half the fashion sense mom has."
"Okay, you're right, maybe I didn't pick them out but I sure as hell bought them with my own money! Cough 'em up, Kash."
Akasha shook her head. Her mouth had curled into an open grin at that point, beaming brightly enough to match her dad's. Amaryllis watched on in confusion.
"Does it really look good, Dad?" Akasha asked once more, pulling gently at the hem of her shirt. "I was worried it might be a bit too much, but it looks good to me. I might be a little biased."
"It really does, Akasha. You look wonderful."
"Thanks," she said, though her reply was cut short by their mom cutting through the hallway, motioning to Akasha with a flick of her wrist and a jingle of her car keys.
"Come on, pretty lady, don't want McKayla and her mom to be stuck waiting, do you?"
"Her mom is coming?" Akasha huffed. "I thought you guys were just going to drop us off!"
"Yeah, we are, and then Laurie and I are going to get some coffee and gossip about adult stuff like bills and the current price of gas and Angelina Jolie's love life," her mom grabbed her winter coat off the coat hanger beside the front door and shoved an arm through with ease, blowing a kiss across the room to Amaryllis and her dad. He blew a kiss back, yelled out a quick "have fun!" and the door soon slammed shut behind them.
Amaryllis didn't hesitate to speak, throwing herself against her dad's arm as he reached for the remote once more. He pulled her foot out from beneath her and tickled it until she gasped for air, then successfully grabbed the remote and pressed play. Amaryllis attempted to catch her breath, dug her foot between her dad's leg and the couch cushion, and asked, "Why did you lie to her, dad? Her outfit was gross."
"Hey," his tone dripped with disapproval though his expression seemed amused. He pressed pause again, this time capturing Sokka in an even more uncomfortable position: lips twisted into a deep frown as Foo Foo Cuddlypoops nudged an apple towards him. "That's not very nice. Let's not talk that way."
"But it was," Amaryllis argued. There was no way her dad didn't know that; anyone with eyes would have noticed. "It was ugly and you lied to her."
"Just because it wasn't something I would wear didn't make it ugly," he said. "Your sister obviously liked it. If you were wearing your favorite clothes and I said that to you, how would you feel?"
Amaryllis' brows drew together in thought. Eventually she sighed and said, "I wouldn't feel good at all."
"And I would never say something purposefully to make you feel that way, and neither would you say something like that to make your sister unhappy, right?" Amaryllis nodded in agreement, feeling as if her heart had fallen into her stomach. Her chest ached in a way she didn't quite understand, and quickly her eyes filled with tears. Guilt. A strong arm curled its way around her shoulders, pulling her closer until she could once again rest her head upon her dad's chest. He pressed a gentle kiss to her hair. "Sometimes it's better to keep certain things to yourself in order to protect the people you love. I want Akasha to always be happy, and if wearing whatever she likes makes her happy, then who am I to tell her otherwise?"
Though the guilt had set in, pride spread throughout her chest like the petals of a Morning Glory opening beneath bright rays of sun. She closed her eyes to savor the warmth inside and heard the babble of water upon smooth rock, felt it cool the heat between her toes, running softly, soothing against her calves. The heat of the body beneath hers was somehow comfortable though the air surrounding them was stiflingly humid.
Amaryllis lifted her head from her father's shoulder and saw that it was Mihris.
"Didn't mean to wake you, da'len," he said. His smile softened the lines of his face, the slight wrinkles upon his forehead, the things that had formed from his anger. Now they were but scars of what once was. Now they represented someone she could call home. "But the fish will not wait for us."
"And neither will I," Ellana called out from where she stood inside their trap in the water, attempting to catch a fish with her bare hands. It slid from between her slick fingers to slap back into the river. Laughter bubbled up from inside, a sweet melody she felt she hadn't heard in more than a lifetime. Mihris' body shook from beneath hers. "Babae, help me! I'm hungry!"
A hand patted her shoulder then gently moved her to the side. Mihris stood and entered the water, bursting into laughter when his daughter failed to catch the fish once more. Warmth stayed nestled against her beating heart though an empty sorrow flashed in the recesses of her mind, her subconscious beginning to pull her away from what she once had.
If only I still had you, she thought, rushing to take in the sight of Mihris and Ellana together as the edges of her vision began to fray, curling in on itself until it all faded to black. I miss you, more than life itself. I miss you.
Amaryllis came into awareness slowly.
Each twitch of her fingers, her arms, her legs, only reminded her of the exhaustion that had overtaken her after descending the mountain. Each muscle in her worn body ached, and each attempt at opening her eyes felt like swimming in a pool of molasses. She wasn't sure she would ever wake.
That is, until she heard a sound to her left, something between a sigh and a pained groan, something so familiar that Amaryllis no longer found herself struggling to wake but scrambling to sit up, hands sliding across the thin cot she laid open and onto the stone floor beside it. She hit the ground with a thud; the feeling of her nails scraping against rock, collecting dirt beneath them, caused her to shudder into true awareness. She blinked her heavy-lids open and somehow found herself able to push through the fatigue that weighed upon her like wet cement.
The first thing she noticed was how dimly-lit the room was. A few braziers sat outside the cell door — the only source of light she could see from behind the metal bars of her prison. The second was that she was not alone, for Ellana laid, unmoving, upon her own cot. If it were not for the quick rise and fall of her chest beneath a mound of rough blankets, and another groan that passed through her lips — tightly-pressed, thin, and pale — Amaryllis would have thought her sister was dead.
She crossed the short space between them on her hands and knees, throwing her trembling hands forward to grip her sister's. Ellana's fingers were colder than ice. When Amaryllis pulled Ellana's left hand closer towards her she saw it again: a flash of sickly green light streaming from a tear in her sister's palm. She gasped and pulled Ellana's hand further open, unable to turn her gaze from the mark as it began to spread, pulsing, spewing sparks like lightning into the air as the skin of her palm ripped. Blood spilled across her skin and down Amaryllis' fingers.
Ellana began to cry though her eyes had yet to open. Amaryllis dropped her sister's hand at the sight of her tears, shocked once more into moving. Ellana's blood felt warm against her chilled skin.
"Shhh, Ellana," she murmured, chin quivering as she fought back a sudden wave of her own tears. "You're safe. I'm here," she said, using the edge of her ruined robe to wipe away the salt from her sister's face before it wet the hair at her temples. Ellana continued to cry, her forehead wrinkled in pain. She seemed not to have registered Amaryllis' touch, nor the sound of her voice. Amaryllis' chest tightened. "Ellana?"
The sudden clap of boots against stone, somewhere outside their cell, made her turn away. She pressed forward as if on instinct, covering Ellana's shaking body with her own. The footsteps approached the iron bars of their cage, coming to stop at the doorway with an audible snap and the clinking of armor.
"You're awake," a rough, exhausted voice spoke. Amaryllis turned her head to the side to glare with bloodshot eyes and was not surprised to see it was Cassandra. The Seeker's cheeks sunk in further as her pallid lips pressed together into a thin line. She looked as though she hadn't slept, eaten, or seen the light of day in weeks. Amaryllis wagered she looked much the same. "Good."
Is it, really? She wanted to ask. Instead she looked away, turned her gaze to the rise and fall of her sister's chest, and said nothing. A butterfly seemed to be hatching within her stomach, making its way up her throat, fighting against the seam of her tightly closed lips. Cold, nervous sweat began to prick at her palms, slicking her upper lip. Her chin quivered.
"Solas will be looking after her until she wakes and proves well enough for questioning," Cassandra continued. Her voice echoed throughout the dungeon's vast halls. Amaryllis's ears began to ring. Further, hurried footsteps could be heard from the same direction Cassandra had come, and Amaryllis began to shiver, though from the cold stone beneath her or from fear, she didn't know. "You, on the other hand, will be coming with me."
Amaryllis quickly turned on her knees to face Cassandra, whipping her head so fast she began to see stars. Her dry lips cracked, tongue like cotton against the roof of her mouth. It clicked audibly in her throat as she croaked out a reply.
"No," her answer came out softer than intended. She sucked in a breath to try again, running the tip of her tongue across her stinging lips. "I can't. Ask anything you like, but I must stay here."
Cassandra crossed her arms. Her eyebrows pulled together as she scowled. "I don't know if you've noticed, but you're currently locked in a cell and in absolutely no position to argue."
"Please," Amaryllis had no qualms about begging when it came to her sister, so she did, thankful for the hoarseness of her voice, for the way it caused Cassandra to flinch and turn her head to the side. She pressed again, hopeful that the Seeker's resolve could be broken. "Please."
But Cassandra did not give in. Instead, she turned her back to Amaryllis and took a deep breath, lifting her shoulders higher as if bracing for impact. She motioned with one hand towards the left side of the dark hallway and two soldiers came forward. One pressed a key into the lock and twisted it to the side, the other shifting his stance to prepare for the opening of the cell door.
"No," Amaryllis tried to yell, coughing at the sudden tightness in her throat, turning to face them. Though her stomach burned from hunger, and her legs shook beneath her, threatening to spill her upon the floor, she reached for the tiniest sliver of mana she could find, bringing her hands out before her to do something, anything. "No, please! Stop, please! Don't touch me!"
She should have expected the purge yet it somehow took her by surprise, sending Amaryllis to her knees. She barely registered the horrifying cracking noise her bones made as they met stone, too focused on the breath leaving her lungs and her vision, which had turned a blinding white. A great rumbling came from her chest, as if her stomach were attempting to vacate her body.
A sudden wetness touched her cheeks. She could hear her fathers laughing again, could feel the shaking of their bodies beneath hers and the heat of the sun upon her cheeks though her fingers grasped nothing but air—air that her lungs had yet to find.
She drifted. She drifted, reminded of the trip to Jader, of the rolling in her stomach and the rolling of the waves against the stern of Isabella's ship and the rolling of Ellana's head against her shoulder as she slept while Amaryllis sat awake, staring at a stain on their cabin's ceiling, clutching her sister's hand in hers as if to remind herself that the nightmare could only last so long. It would be over, eventually.
Eventually.
The first thing to come rushing back to her was the pain in her knees where they were pressed into the ground. The second was a heaviness in her arms, a straining of her shoulders and a pulling against her wrists. The third was the fast flutter of her heart and the sharp cut of cold air in her abused lungs.
The last was her vision. Her eyelashes brushed against her damp skin until she remembered how to separate her lids, blinking harshly against the first vestiges of firelight. Her head rolled to one side, then the other, and she stared up at the domed ceiling, forgetting how thoughts formed until the stabbing pain in her knees caused her to finally look down.
Her wrists were encased in metal, bound in chains to the floor before her. A quick, gentle tug showed just how strong they were.
A noise, the clearing of a throat, caused Amaryllis to jump and tense her shoulders. Her eyes darted to the corner of the room where someone sat, their face obscured by shadows.
The nightmare would be over eventually. She was sure of it.