Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ataya breathed out, swallowing around the building, wrenching knot in his throat, and his motions felt mechanical — numb — as he stepped over the threshold and into the room. Closing the door shut behind him, he moved slowly as he felt his way, not wanting to frost over his sister’s room. Her anger seemed to have subsided for the moment, and the grief in its place only served to multiply Ataya’s, washing over his previous anger, too, and seeing to it that by the time he reached the bed, his body all but collapsed to it, trembling even as he caught at his sister and tucked against her.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…’

The words beat around inside his head, heavy on his tongue, but everything hurt and he could not seem to force anything past his throat. So he clung to her instead and shook his head weakly. “I’ll figure it out,” he managed at length, voice hoarse and barely above a whisper. “I’ll figure it out, all of it, I promise, I never meant to…”

Leave?

That was a lie. He had fully intended to, hence why he had told no one, and that fact, in retrospect, made the current moment all the harder on his conscience. So he buried the thought.

“…hurt you,” he finished. “I never meant to hurt…you, or Mother, or Father, or anyone, I was just—” Terrified. Hopeless. Lost. “I’m going to learn, Akara. I’m going to figure this out. I’ll figure it out, and it will be alright…you’ll see…”

Ataya’s breath left him in a shudder, irregular and broken up by the clench of his throat. He returned his sister’s hold, though, clinging to her as surely as she clung to him, well aware that his eyes were well beyond ‘damp’ now and likely getting her shoulder wet, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He had come into this world with his sister, and her presence was a much needed rock, even if they both felt currently lost at sea. Part of him was aware distantly, even before he opened his mouth, that her want of a promise asked for something that he might later find difficult to keep, a bitter pessimism in his gut telling him that if something had happened once, it could happen again.

And next time he might not fail.

But here, in this moment, he wanted never to be so foolish again, never to allow weakness in the moment overcome better judgment longer term, and he hoped better of himself. So he nodded.

“I promise. I promise you I never will — I will bother you and the rest of this earth for as long as I can manage until you are sick of me…” He folded his fingers at the nape of her neck, clutching loosely and rooting himself in the familiar: his sister, her curls, her voice, here, real, and there for him. “You have my word.”