Help. It's again.

Air Castles Can't Weather Storms

It's been a long time since she's been woken up by her daughter's screams in the middle of the night and not the other way around. There's a reason she moved into the nursery at the other end of the house and left her husband to share their bed with their child. And there's apparently more than one use for the walls of steel she spent over a decade on building around her mind, long before she met the man she had married.

Keeping thoughts out was good, but since she had a family to care for keeping thoughts in was even better. Tonight too, there's sound that only dies on her lips as she finally succeeds in fighting her way to full wakefulness, a storm that only rages and then finally fizzles out in her mind alone. The house is eerily silent afterwards. She has to strain her ears to hear her husband's faint snoring at all from all the way over here.

It's good, it should be good, it means she can't wake them. Poor little Imogen needs her sleep, Relvin too if she expects him to function properly and like a person come daylight. It doesn't feel good. Liliana pulls her knees up to her chest and hides her face in them, pretends the unforgiving knowledge doesn't sting like the tears gathering in her eyes. She's harming her family just by existing, she knows and yet doesn't do anything about it.

And then Relvin's snores cut out and her insides freeze in the sudden complete silence as ice cold fear shoots through her veins. Her heart howls like the relentless storms in her every nightmare, every night, and her legs catapult her out of bed before she realizes what she's doing. Quick, quiet footsteps form her path across the room and then down the hallway, heart pounding in her ears like a war drum. No, no, no, no, no-

The door to the bedroom creaks open with barely a sound and there they are. Relvin on his back, Imogen across his chest, both breathing, both deeply asleep. Imogen twitches in her sleep and unintentionally kicks her father in the chin. Liliana has to clamp her hand over her mouth to stifle a surprised burst of wet chuckling as her eyes water anew, from relief this time.

Relvin grunts and gently moves the little girl off of him to shift onto his side without ever seeming to wake. The sleeping toddler snuggles against his chest, none the wiser and completely unfazed. Liliana's heart squeezes painfully as she stands and watches from afar. She's been doing a lot of that lately. The fear of hurting any of them simply by being too close is burrowing deeper and deeper into her mind and not brushed aside as easily anymore as before Imogen's birth.

Before, when Relvin would smile understandingly at what he called her adorable frown and tell her she was worrying too much and that she shouldn't, that it was bad for the baby, that everything would be fine, and then he'd say something hilarious and completely unrelated and she'd laugh and blissfully forget that she was worrying about anything at all. At least for a little while.

But then Imogen was born, just a little early, and there she was, that fragile creature, so horribly, terrifyingly vulnerable in the faint light of that cursed red moon. So terrifyingly similar looking to her mother, with Liliana's crazy purple hair and her eyes, her nose, ears, chin, that people jokingly expressed doubt if Relvin had been involved at all.

And Liliana was almost certain that the relentless storm that haunted her every single night got louder afterwards. It scared her beyond belief. Relvin's assurances were so mournfully hollow to her ears from that night onwards.

Liliana can admit, at least to herself, that she has gotten jumpy. Distrustful. Paranoid. She tries not to let it show, but Relvin isn't stupid. He realized long ago that she wasn't alright and eventually he must've realized he couldn't help her any longer. Liliana isn't sure yet, but she thinks he might slowly be withdrawing from her. It doesn't hurt as much as the fact that she agrees with his decision. She's broken, dangerous, she's a danger to their little family.

She doesn't understand anymore how she could ever have believed that this kind of life would be in the cards for her. Doesn't know what Relvin saw in her, doesn't remember what he replied when she told him about her... quirks. How he made himself, how he made her believe that they could really have this. He'd been so happy when she told him that she was pregnant. A stray tear slips down Liliana's cheek unbidden. Gently, she pulls the door shut.

She wants to walk away, but her feet stay rooted to the floorboards of their home, her back to the door as if she'd be able to protect them that way. She wonders where the love went that she had before it all turned to fear.

The love she had for their home when Relvin first showed her this house and told her it would be theirs. Now she only fears how exposed it sits in the open landscape, how it's too frail to weather a storm like the one in her dreams and too easily torn asunder by attackers.

The love she had for him back in the day, such a kind and caring man, caring for someone like her who was so strange to someone as endearingly normal as him. She'd secretly loved it, how normal he was. Now she only fears that he's too normal to be prepared, too normal to protect himself and their daughter... too normal to love her anymore after she's proven herself not fixable, not capable of shaking the weird that suffuses her very essence.

Even worse, so much worse, not capable of safely carrying their daughter beyond the cursed reach of the red moon of ill omen and thus the same fate as her mother.

The love she had for Imogen when she first looked into her little face, before the first fearful pang at the striking similarities and the reminder of the red celestial body looming outside. Now she only fears that she brought inevitable doom to her poor innocent child just by birthing her, just by being her mother. Fears that she will further contaminate her daughter with every touch, every look, every  single word directed at her.

She's endangering her family, she's harming her family. The hot sting of tears trails down her face. She should listen and leave. Listen to the voiceless urge nagging at her very soul to get moving, to go search, to follow the pull and solve the puzzle, to solve the problem, to lead the danger away from her home. To find a solution to this condition, to repair, fix, cure what she inflicted upon her own child.

Listen to the long familiar realization that this idea of a normal, peaceful life was a pipe dream for her, one that was inevitably slipping away, a delusion that she should finally let go of. Before it's too late. Before someone gets hurt. Liliana doesn't move. That strong pull inside her chokes the air from her lungs, vehemently telling her to go hunt for answers, for salvation, but her body refuses to move an inch, feeling oddly detached.

Liliana breathes deeply until the mild, soundless sobs subside and the tears eventually run dry. She sinks to the floor without conscious thought and embraces unconsciousness as her eyes grow heavy. There are no more storms that night. Relvin finds her fast asleep leaning against the doorframe the next morning, face still faintly tearstained. He thanks the gods that it wasn't Imogen who found her mother like that.

He doesn't know yet that all too soon he'll wake up one morning and be unable to find her at all.