one ✞ audio

[iluminar]

Are we truly on the moon?

[ She sounds curious, curious enough to ask again but this time to the network now that she's been given proper instruction on how to work it and the device given to her. Lucrezia's already asked both her mother and her brother, but asking network-wide means making friends. ]

Has it always been this bleak? We see it high up in the sky, unable to ever touch it. It shines down light should we happen to lose our way—and this is how it really is? What a lonely place to be.

And space—God’s light must not reach far.

[ It doesn’t make sense. It shouldn’t be possible. Yet here they all are. And she'll put behind her the chaotic welcome she had been greeted with, monsters and carnage, death littering the corridors a week ago. ]

I cannot help but think that space is a far darker world than that of Rome.

[ But how could such a thing even be possible? ]

Comments

[iluminar]

[ she sits in silence and welcomes the press of warm lips to her temple, leaning into the embrace. lucrezia closes her eyes and for that small moment allows herself to be young again, having her mother close and tucking her in with the warm glow of a candle at her bedside.

the familiar scents of her childhood are with her mother especially and right now, it does wonders to calm her, to soothe the ache in her chest as temporary as it may be. ]

Then no one will object should I choose to unsheathe my claws and snap my teeth.

[ they will rue the day they thought they could use a borgia as a pawn to their game, these initiative. ]

[matre]

[ vanozza studies lucrezia under the guise of a concerned mother. is this what she was like when she was as young? filled with this fire that could raze a kingdom? she doesn't remember. she doesn't believe so.

she brushes the backs of her fingers against lucrezia's cheek. she smiles. ]

Remember when to purr, my dear, and when to bite.

[iluminar]

I learned from only the best after all.

[ she gives her mother a teasing little smile as she leans into the touch once more, already her mind working through when to purr and when would be the best moment to bite. ]

[matre]

[ she answers with a quiet laugh. ]

And surpassed the teacher.

[iluminar]

Is that not how it should be? We as mothers teach to our children everything we know so that one day our children will surpass us?

[matre]

That is our hope.

[ learn from the parents' mistakes. but there are a million new mistakes for them to make, which no one could have predicted. ]

[iluminar]

If the three of us are here in this base on the moon, that would mean Father and Juan are back home. I cannot help but wonder which of us has the advantage for safety.

Being here or being back in Rome.

[matre]

[ she's far too practiced by now to let her face fall at the mention of her second son. ]

Nobody is looking for us here. But I cannot say we are safe. Safe in a different way, perhaps.