{ OF STRENGTH ·}:
No longer does Yang have the instinct to arm herself when she realizes who is standing in front of her. Ember Celica remains in its dormant state as she stares back at the woman she’d once longed to meet, once thought she wanted to meet more than anything. She’s grown since then; she’s learned. She knows that the woman before her is nothing that she had imagined she was as a lonely child missing two mothers.
`It’s not my fault that you abandoned me.` Part of her still wants to say it out loud, to declare it where Raven will hear her truth. But she knows better than to rely on her for affirmation by now.
”You’re right,” she says instead, simply. Her gaze is blank; she should have known Raven would come here, more desperate and pathetic than anyone. There’s no anger to muster up, only exactly the emotion her mother expected. And maybe something softer, something she doesn’t want to acknowledge. Because if she can’t be angry, she’ll be damned if she doesn’t at least stand her ground in this way. ”You are just another disappointment. I guess you just couldn’t run far enough away.”
By no means discombobulating, the trenchant affront doesn't solicit a pugnacious outburst. Inconspicuously, it magnifies the somber frown that already tugs at her lips. Once recalcitrant and fervent, the fires of indignation that roared within her cannot be reinvigorated at present. She's already been objectionably vulnerable - egregiously exposed - in the presence of this doughty youth and neither have forgotten. At least, around one who's fruitfully rendered it to shreds, there's no reclaiming that aloof air of vainglory that she meticulously crafted. When it would be far too transparent, there's no point in attempting to resuscitate it. Battered and beleaguered, the mortal heart that she's not devoid of cannot withstand the onslaught of caustic barbs that she'd undoubtedly be subjected to were she to heedlessly linger here. Not when they're coming from her. So, she prudently resolves not to. Despite an inane impulse to quarrel - to thoughtlessly fight fire with fire, she simply emits an audible sigh. Were she not clinging to an external facade of equanimity, 'twould be a tremulous breath.
❝ From a certain perspective, it looks that way, doesn't it? ❞
Cerise eyes looking away from amethyst ones, she proceeds to walk around the intrepid adolescent - to determinedly pass her by. No utterances depart from her unpredictable lips as she does so.











