Lyra was sitting on her bed with her knees pulled up and her eyes open when Aelara came through the door.
Not surprised. Not pretending to be surprised. She had the look she wore when she had been waiting for something and it had finally arrived the settled, ready quality that had stopped sitting oddly on her face somewhere around age five and now just looked like her.
Caelum came in behind Aelara and sat on the floor with his back against the wall, the corner position, automatic.
Aelara sat on the edge of the bed.
She looked at her daughter for a moment. Lyra looked back with the full open truth-sense, not reading just present, the way she was present when she had decided that full honesty was what the moment required and was offering it first.
"Tell me what you felt," Aelara said.
