ORIGIN

Patiently she waited for the trino to return to her - it was inevitable, after all, her Fire wouldn't leave her... would she? She could hear the voices distantly cloying for attention, two small ones panicked as they thrashed in the water and gathered around the trino, calling her Mama, Mama, Mama, and then she could hear Nemesis gently coo to them that their Mama was here. Her, the trino, suddenly their mother. Magdalena furrowed her brow, but that was the extent of the emotion she had allowed to slip free. When she heard it it was no more than a pinprick in her mind. But Nemesis urged the children out of the water, and Magdalena was left clamoring over the word. They must have looked upon her and decided that she was their mother, but how - how was it so easy? How could it happen so quickly, so suddenly, so loyally?

Perhaps I was not meant for such a fate. Out of nowhere it emerged like a cold flame, the thought. Or maybe it was an epiphany. Magdalena tried to distance herself from the possibility, convince herself that maybe it wasn't true, that maybe she had just been unlucky, but the present had a way of reminding her. Dredging up those memories. The memory of the numbat and the dragon. The memory of the horse, the last time she'd seen her. The little dog, Graham. The caracal. They had all left... and here her Fire was with two identical creatures in tow to add onto the amalgamate of a beast she had created of the iolite, that had hatched in her den, waiting for their return.

Magdalena wished she had room still in her heart for love. In its place was resentment.

Her Fire's voice was the cue to look up, and Magdalena raised her head, her attention latched onto the trino in her approach. She listened closely as the trino asked them for their names, and Magdalena reached out for them, dutifully seeking to know them as Nemesis had. She'd since given up any hope that a creature may hold her in such juvenile love as they did Nemesis, but that didn't mean she would abandon the motions. In the back of her head, that hope still lingered; it was neglected and withering in the dust, but it still breathed.

Their isolated cultures responded and showed her where they sat. Magdalena felt their pulled and pointed her nose first at the female, then to the male, and finally settled with directing her gaze between the two of them. As Nemesis introduced her, Magdalena smiled.