[ Action, Voice BACKDATED to the late afternoon of yesterday, 9/14 ]

[momnapplepie]

[The morning was beautiful in its normalcy. She'll look back on it and wonder at the fact that she ever let Maes go. She should have been holding onto him. She should have spent every minute with him - it is somehow impossible to her that he would be gone while she was there. She wouldn't think anything could separate them. This was twice she'

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3:^| She's outside, if anyone wants to see her there, too.

[asobouyo]

[It's hard to imagine that a child can be struck with a sort of numbness that should have been more befitting an adult-when he'd first gone away, she was confused, and then deeply upset and troubled and didn't quite get it.

But she's six now. She definitely understands what it implies, to be gone away. What was once confusion is now stubborn denial. She sat in her room sadly and wet-eyed for a few hours when her mother wasn't holding her and speaking into her ear, and then when she realized he definitely wasn't going to walk in no matter how hard she imagined it, she started trying to look for him -

In the closet, under the bed, out the window, in everyone else's room, outside, where she plays. All done with a quiet, blank expression that was unsettling for someone who was more content to smile and laugh.

He's just lost or hiding.

When she took her break from looking, she sat on the couch, hugging a doll and wearing a distraught face. It was hard to put these things together, all in her head. Where did she not look yet... she'd have to look there, too. He couldn't've left. He would never leave them -

but he had to, before... It's not fair. It's not fair! He didn't want to leave, she knew that!

He had to still be here, because the second obvious, real, true conclusion hurt too too much.]

and just to establish familial presence, really

[momnapplepie]

[Elicia did not look alone.

Gracia was not letting her daughter out of her sight.

And so for any sort of outside conversation, Gracia will be in the background, not too far away, but with enough to give Elicia space, while Elicia searched.

She doesn't stop her, as much as she wants to. This is part of grief too. She won't force the realization on her, won't make her try to accept it. They have all the time in the world to accept it. For now, let her look.

It's all she can do not to join her.

And when Elicia is finally finished, she'll be there.]

;u; we'll make it, mama

[asobouyo]

[After a while, she'll breathlessly return to her mother, still with that mask of confusion on her face--or perhaps one of disbelief. She should have found him by now. Maybe he was... in the village somewhere. Or in the forest. When she speaks, her voice is low, and she doesn't have the energy to look her mother in the face. She stares at the ground.]

... He's just busy somewhere, 'cause he likes to be busy... He'll be home soon, though.

;;

[momnapplepie]

[Gracia reaches down and picks Elicia up. The only way she can go through saying this is if her daughter is in her arms.]

You know that if he could help it, no amount of being busy would keep him from you if he knew you were looking for him.

[asobouyo]

[She wipes her eyes at that, trying not to show the sudden drop in determination in her face. And at that, she wraps her arms around her mother and pulls her close. Her voice is watery and lined with it's not fair.]

He's not gone; he's going to come back-he's not gone, mama, he wouldn't let them do that!