Cas' Memories

They hadn't looked at her since Cephias died. Not really. They'd given her those sideways glances that never lingered, brushing ephemerally over her like the comforting paws she shirked away from. But that was all.

Nothing she did could make them care. Her biting words, skipping school, illicit alcohol bought with obviously stolen petals, none of it could make them even turn their gaze. When the awkward scoldings stopped working, they left her to do what she wanted.

Broken glass and blood lay before her, her cragged window gaping at the night sky. When her screams of misplaced rage faded she sat back, waiting and staring at what she had done.

The house fell silent but for the wind brushing through the now open window. Nobody came.

She was still grieving when they gave it up, when the allotted time to mourn the dead had come and gone. They redid his room while she was at school one day. She sat in the middle of the shiny new guest room right by her own, nothing resembling him left in it, but she couldn't even muster the will to cry. By then, there was nothing but a void inside her. An empty night sky.

The rest of the house went with it, every little thing shifted around until it was unrecognizable. They tried to redo her room, but she snarled and spit like a fell dragon until they dropped the issue.

So they distracted themselves with trinkets and baubles, grand trips to other cities, visits to the beach and the attractions in Nale. Eventually they stopped asking her to come along.

That's why leaving wasn't difficult.

They had tried in vain to redirect some of their attention onto her after Cephias died, but it came far too late and she no longer wanted their shallow affections. After her fifteenth hatchday ended in a screaming match, they stopped acknowledging it at all. When she woke up on her eighteenth hatchday, the house was empty.

She thought about leaving a note or some kind of token. She thought about not going at all.

The image of her room, redecorated to be plain, white, unassuming, entered unbidden into her mind. Like his had been so quickly after he was gone, how effortlessly they'd wiped away his memory and left a blank slate in its place. And then it was easy to walk away.

Her lack of presence in the house would tell them enough. They wouldn't care to go looking for her. When they realized she was gone, she imagined – she hoped – that they would be relieved.