She mouths a prayer to Jastfaer because she knows he's the only one who will listen. She, who is often pushed aside or shoved into the background. Her whispers are pressed into the forgotten fabrics at the back of the closet. Your kind should be unknown. And why, she wonders, because there is no excuse, really. Fear drives their actions, if not their hate, and she is but an ant in the face of their magnitude and breadth.
Jastfaer of the Long Winter. Jastfaer the Watcher of the Forgotten. He would listen, wouldn't he? The only one who would reach out to find her in the backrooms and caress her face with his kind hands. Tell her that she has been heard, and no longer must she scream into the darkness.
Being an enthys in the world is devastating. All this power and bound by the rules. All this power and still they look upon you in disgust and horror, as if your very existence has invited something they would rather have buried. To be half is even worse. She cannot help being what she is, cast out of her own world to be forced into one that wants her even less.
When he touches her hand, she breathes a sigh of relief. A prayer answered.
Just a moment of your time Jastfaer, I fear the world is ending, she says and Jastfaer gives her an inquisitive look.
You can see the threads of time, my vadya, you can pluck the strings. We are on the brink of collapse. I am on the brink of collapse. She squeezes his hands. He never once looks away, does not mock her words. He does not brush her off or laugh. Instead, he breaks one hand away to gently brush a lock of dark hair from her face.
Yes, the thought bounces around her head and it is not her own. Always ending. We are always ending, on the brink. Could pluck the strings. Would bring us to the end. Yes. What do you want to do before we end?
She has never been asked that before: what does she want? It is always what they want. Be quiet. Remain unseen. Hide away until your needed, not because you are wanted. And not because you want.
Home. She says. Because this isn't one, and the one she had was long tore from her fingers. All because she was not enough of one or the other. To be an enthys. To be an ildrat. Never enough of one or the other. Not enough to be accepted.
Yes... Remember, always have one here. He presses her hand to his chest. Just whisper. Will always hear you.
It's not enough, she says, gripping his ice cold fingers with her clawed ones. What if the world ends and you're not here?
Don't be silly, Alane.
Wouldn't ever leave you behind.