Falls

true love is for quitters

My mother didn't tell me anything like that, he answers and her reply slips out before she can think about it. "Lucky you."

Guilt slammed into her chest and she, too, looked away. Her feelings for her mother were complicated, neither wholly negative or positive. Vivienne could be kind, when she wanted to be. There had been snuggles and cuddles and the warmth that came with a mother's love. In the beginning, she'd been tolerant of Vex's youth and curiosity but that tolerance had waned with each passing day until finally - no matter how much Vex shrank herself - Vivi could no longer stand her.

Sometimes Vex wished she had never been there at all, if only so that it didn't hurt so bad to remember the good times when she was gone.

The red and white boy was back to staring at the fish, but he answered her question all the same, and she grasped onto the thread of conversation like a lifeline, desperate for a way out of her thoughts. Again, the words slip past her filter, pooling out into the space between them without any of the careful thought and consideration that Vivi had tried to instill in her daughter. "You could live here too."

She didn't know where the offer had come from. The last thing she wanted was a stinky giant roommate who didn't know how to bathe himself... but that wasn't really true either. Even a stinky giant roommate would at least be company. Someone to talk to about all the weird adults and the cool flowers she found. It would be someone that wouldn't try to boss her around or make her learn manners or try to make her leave.

"I mean," she sputtered, her cheeks flaming hot with embarrassment. "I-if you want to I guess. I don't think there's any giant trees there, but, um, yeah."

She looked away again, swallowing hard and then peered back at him to finally answer his other question. "And no, I haven't seen a wolf. My mom always called my grandpa a Wolf King though, She called him Rougaru, the Wolf King of Atlantis." Vex, of course, had never met her grandsire, and with the way things were currently looking, probably never would. She edged forward to peer down at the fish with him, albeit with a healthy distance from the edge. "Why would you like some stinky fish over a wolf anyway?"