The first few moments were tense for Ultear; her mother, who she thought was, was here. Before her. But then again, the witch pondered, Ultear herself was alive. But her sacrificial spell was wrong. She made one tiny mistake in it and she barley contributed to anything. The effects hurt her head, but other than that Ultear was healthy.
Ur looked healthy as well.
Although curious, Ultear could easily read that her mother did not want to speak about her own time coming back from wherever she was, and truth be told, the time mage herself didn’t wish to as well. Instead, Ultear took a seat in the kitchen table, throwing one leg over the other, because no, if there was going to be any tearful mother/daughter reunion for Ultear, it would be with Meredy.
Being a mother who, in the end, did leave her daughter (but only because Ultear was an unworthy mother, because she had so easily let go of seven years of progress. Because she had almost killed an innocent for something he did not yet do. Because she was a monster. Because—-
) it gave her perspective on her own mother. However, the woman can clearly state, with no doubt, that Meredy was in safe hands.
If Ultear would ever trust someone completely and with no doubt, it would be Jellal. (Meredy was there, too,but not in that context. Meredy was her daughter, and she did trust her, but Jellal understood Ultear more and vice verse.)
But that was not for now, that thinking was for later. “Ur,” it was the most simple greeting, and all that Ultear would say would suffice for this moment. The first words between mother and daughter in more than seventeen years. “Fancy seeing you here. I fixed up the place; Lyon and Gray failed to do so in the past seventeen years. I was going to go out to find Jellal and Meredy and lead them here but,” At this, the woman who was once a devil, perhaps still, but one with good intention, folded her hands together and placed them upon her lap, her back leaned against the wood of the chair. It was an old one, but Ultear was skilled with many things, and no wood would give her a splinter thanks to one of many skills.
“I take it you wouldn’t want to do so; after all we both thought the other dead.”
Ur had never been too fond of surprises as in her childhood, her brother’s ‘surprises’ had usually caused her pain and suffering. The sentiment that surprises were something to avoid had lingered, even after Lance had disappeared, even after his shadow had grown smaller and smaller (without ever disappearing fully). When she had ran away from home, when she had started to build a life that was not dominated by someone who was not even there to terrorise her, to be the monster under her bed (or, more precisely: the reason why there was always something around her that unsettled her at night), she had gotten somewhat better with surprises.
Seeing Ultear — alive and well — would have scared her, under different circumstances. It would have made her feel like she had failed her, would have made her feel like she should be DROWNING in guilt. Perhaps it even would have made her worry that, after all these years, Lance was still not through with her, that had never stopped messing with her head.
But, for some reason, her fear was silent. Instead, there was a sense of ‘oh, nice to see you’ inside of the older mage, a feeling of inner peace, of serenity. Perhaps it was because she was too tired of constantly fearing her own shadow — quite literally, actually. Perhaps it was because there was a mad hope inside of her that, perhaps, Lance had not yet heard that she was around again, that she would be safe from his madness for a little while longer.
Looking at her daughter, she nodded for a moment, her eyes watchful — just in case. Then, she shrugged and finally remembered how to speak in full, nearly eloquent sentences. “Given that you fixed it, it’s more yours than mine,” she said as she looked around, trying to remember why she had returned to the small house in the first place. Perhaps to retrieve a few books she hoped that not fallen victim to the rain and the snow, perhaps to take one last look at the place she had so many memories of.
But now, she was looking at a future that did not require her to be still bound to this place. It was a future that needed her to be unpredictable, in a way, and to have a home would make her predictable. And had she not made it without a place to call home for years, once? There was little doubt on her mind that she could do it again.
“For me, it’s time to move on … I just came to
get my hands on some of the books, anyway. It’s
yours now.”
