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The more I spoke, the more Amelia’s intensity seemed to subside. She went from seething to silence; her claws retracted back down to her side and I could feel my life expectancy shoot back up to an entire lifetime.

“Adalia showed me what happened after a bit of convincing, she was a bit reluctant at first – afraid I’d come to hate her, as if that’s even a possibility,” I said, speaking firmer, breathing with a bigger breadth now no longer with a jagged knife hovering against my throat. “That being said, she only showed me what she could. The rest – she said something about not being able to, about her memories being – ”

“A soul as desecrated and tainted as hers, a slight lapse in recollection is the best anyone could hope for,” Amelia said, the last of her rage dwindling as she moved past me and perched her claws atop a nearby windowsill; grime and dust allowing only splotches of sunlight to filter through. “Alas, the things I would have gladly given away of myself had that been all that she had lost that day.”

So sudden and sullen was her transition that I couldn’t even feel relieved that she wasn’t pestering anymore. It was as if she had entirely disappeared into another space, another place in time completely separate… and the deep dark emptiness of the room added to that effect; once more it felt as if I was plunged into another swirling black fog of distant memories.

“I have to ask,” I said, treading the darkness closer to her. “Were you really planning on letting Adalia die because she wanted to? Were you really going to leave her just like that?”

Tried my best to sound as impartial as I could. I wasn’t meaning to accuse her of anything. I just wanted to know. I was just asking. And lucky for me, she got that.

Still somber and still quiet, her back still turned away, she began to explain, “It’s what she wanted. For a long, long time already, I would surmise. The only reason she even had lived for so long, I suppose, was solely for my sake. She didn’t wish for me to be all alone, and had it been me in her stead, neither would I have. But everyone has her limits, and back then, right then, she had finally reached hers.”

“And if she really had… umm… passed…” I paused, feeling every word from my lips like thin, flimsy glass. “What would you have done?”

.....

“Live,” came my answer back. “As my sister would have wanted of me. To persevere. To finally be free. In her own words, in her own belief – I am better off without her.”

“Would you have been able to?”

“I am unsure…” Amelia said after a moment of ponder. “...for I do not agree with her in the slightest.”

Could almost still hear her pleads and screams ringing in my ears like a ghost. It was quite the dissonance staring at her now. Always so brash, so unrelentingly cold… hard to believe behind all that… brimmed an almost endless surplus of raw, unbridled love.

“And my mother?” I went on with the questions, wanting resolutions for all the questions I left that night to simmer. “Didn’t she – she knew that what happened might happen, right? Did she never wonder if…?”

“When Terestra stripped my sister of her nature, we fled from her as soon as we were able. Having complied with her whims and attained what we desire, there was no reason for us to dwell in her presence. My sister was now human, and Terestra was at the height of her notoriety. Staying with her would have been unwise, so as soon as Adalia was able, we left. If Terestra had ever thought of our well-being since our departure, I would not know. We never found her again. Until now, I suppose.”

“About that too, what my mother asked you to do in order to get her help…” I quickly said, her words having awoken a fresh batch of more questions. “You… she wanted you two to pretend to be her daughters? Am I getting that right?”

“As if she were kin, yes,” Amelia clarified with a nod. “To see her as our foster mother, Terestra wanted. So for weeks, for months, we indulge her request… and I will not deny that over time we no longer needed to pretend to care for her… in my case, at the very least. I genuinely enjoyed the time we had together, as brief as it had been. Even today, even in spite of her deeds, I hold her still in the highest regard.”

I remembered a long, long, but not actually that long of a long time ago, diving deep in the memories of Ria… during one instance amidst a countless million, coming face-to-face with my mother deliberately trespassing in her domain, that mad lad of a firebird had advised to throw in the towel for all her evil affairs and just settle down somewhere.

To try and love.

To try for a family.

Seems Mom had actually taken her advice to heart.

“Before, the bizarreness of her request had always eluded me to no end. I could not fathom what purpose there was in her gaining our affection,” Amelia spun back around, her fake wings blotching the sunlight in the shade and shape of feathers, and simply stared. “Looking at you now, I often wonder instead, had we never indulged her request, had we not forged a loving bond with her… would you still have ever been born?”

That’s… certainly something that… yeah, mmm… I’m going to leave that thought well alone. Knowing that maybe Adalia and her might have just played a pivotal role in my literal existence… no thanks… existential crises can wait ’till I reach my fifties.

“Liamel,” Amelia suddenly said, crossing her arms solemnly instead of in her usual show of callousness. “Tell me, speak only honestly, what did you think of him?”

There was this distant sense of anticipation from her I could vaguely hear echoing.

“Speak,” She urged after a few more seconds of just silence, speaking a little firmer. “I wish to know what you have to say.”

“Oh, Is this why you’ve been so insistent, then?” I asked, realizing at once. “Why you wanted Adalia to open up to me about herself?”

“Partly the intent, but equally as imperative,” her flippers gave a squishy impatient flop, stepping forward. “Only your sentiments of him in truth, remember – now share them.”

Did I think it was weird why she was so hung on this in particular? Yes. But pitted up against that glare, I didn’t exactly have the luxury to stand and wonder.

“I admire him,” I said. “His strength, his optimism, how he just soldiers on despite the hand life had dealt him. All on his own too. It’s crazy for me to think that his own people shun him, consider him weak – he isn’t. In more ways than one, I think he’s probably stronger than any one of them.”

Amelia nodded along, but it looked as if she was only taking me lightly, just skimming through my words and finding nothing of worth.

“How about the instances when he is with Adalia?” She asked. “Talking with her, being with her. How she reacted to him, reciprocated. How does it make you feel?”

That’s rather specific… and also rather intrusive.

“Can you at least tell me why first you want – ?”

“How does it make you feel?” She repeated again.

I blinked, and a flood of memories flashed within the brief, instantaneous darkness. Every word he had ever said, every claim he had ever made.

Beneath the swaying branches of a tree, sprawled across the green grass, brushing shoulder-to-shoulder, his eyes on her eyes… then slowly, gradually, with every memory, every confession… her lips on his…

I blinked again.

“I’m jealous of him…” I said, voice rippling heavy in the silence. “His strength, his optimism. How can he just soldier on. Everything about him. I envy it. How he can be so kind, so selfless… and how he had loved Adalia too. How he sounded, and the things he managed to do for her… without even knowing, without even trying… and then I look at myself, place us both on a pedestal, and…”

“Do you feel inferior?”

She asked me that, sounding, acting, as if she had been waiting for the longest eternity to just ask me that. And it was like she knew just how I’d feel, reacted… like all of this was going according to her ploy, and if it was – then it was too late, I was ready to confide, to admit it, to just about anyone that would listen.

“I’m worried…” I hesitated once, before quickly my disquiet finished the rest. “...that I won’t ever be as good.”

And for once, as I looked at her, with a single glance exchange, it was as if we were on the same page… her hard stare ebbing softer, unveiling a layer of clear empathy.

“That’s precisely my worry regarding her having chosen you.”

I thought back to all of her prior moments of utter disdain. Her outrage at finding out about our relationship, her aversion at the prospect of it going any further. All her remarks, all her insults, insinuations… stemming not from hatred for me, but from the same worry I hold that she had for her sister.

“Liamel saved my sister, when I was completely unable,” Amelia said. “Despite everything, all I’ve done for her, how much I cared for her, the things I would do for her – I could not save her from her despair, relieve her from her pain. But that man, with just his words alone, with just his smile, the smallest glimpse of the love he had harbored for her… is the sole reason my sister is still breathing. And for that, to him, I am forever grateful. Then, there’s you…”

My eyes followed her, as she moved, as she paced about, uncertainty in her every step, an uncertainty that echoed in the look in her eyes – which too mirrored mine.

“When Liamel died, my sister was forever changed. She had become kinder to others, and would abstain from harming unless only in complete necessity… and even then… I would catch the slightest flicker of remorse. Even as her stunted, benumbed self… he still held a lasting, eternal impression upon her. Now my sister’s changing again. She’s begun to love once more, she’s no longer as passive, there is now an eagerness to her every step… and undoubtedly your influence is the cause.”

Amelia came to a halt, coming full circle back to where she had first started.

“But, just as you feared the same way, I worry that you will not love her enough. Or at least to love her better than I do. To save her in ways that I could never. I am aware you’ve already offered your life once to reclaim your Elf. But Adalia – ”

“I’d do the same for her,” I immediately said. “In a heartbeat.”

Amelia heaved an audible breath the same she would when having to scoff. But she just looked vacant, her expression set in a hollow indifference.

“I am sure you would,” She gave a disheartened blink. “But what if it’s not your life you will have to pledge? If, say, between the Elf… should you have to choose… if you could only choose – save – a single person…”

“Amelia,” I shook my head at her. “That’s not fair.”

“So long as you can’t make that choice, you will always remain envious,” Amelia said sharply. “You will never be good enough. Even if you love her, as sincere, as genuinely as you do… it’ll always remain only a sliver of what you have to offer.”

I wanted to snap back with something, but before I could, there was a blur of movement – and Amelia was inches away once more, her arms reaching, her claws extended… except now they were gripping me, pleading with me.

“I want only what’s truly best for my sister,” She said. “Don’t you?”

Amelia squeezed tighter, the quivering gleam in her eyes more imposing than any harsh scowl.

“Are you?”