Fanfare

Disillusions

"Where were you girls? I told you to be home at five. It's... I don't even know what time it is now!" their mother throws her hands into the air. The laundry sits in a neat, folded pile beside her. She appears to have slept on the couch.

Kina smiles and smooths back her hair. "We're here now, mum. No need to get angry about it."

"You're my little girls. You shouldn't be wondering around on your own," she goes on.

Kina's face falls little, but she tries to hide it. Trenna watches as she helps their mother up from the couch, an arm around her waist, letting her chatter as she leads her towards the bedroom.

"I'm sorry, mum. I promise we won't stay out late again. Promise."

"Good." Trenna hears a pause as she settles herself on the couch. Then:  "I worry about your sister, you know. She looks up to you so much, Kina. She's just a baby."

Trenna's eyes drop to her hands; small, scarred, almost permanently a little reddish from her constant proximity to the fire, not all that much different to the rest of her lightly tanned skin, a pale gold. These are not the hands of a little girl. She has not been a child for a long time.

"There's nothing to worry about, mum. Tren's fine. Perfect." Trenna's eyes tear up a little. She blinks furiously. There is an avid silence. And then she hears a noise, the sound of feet, shuffling on the floor, slowing, stopping. "Come on. Let's get you to bed."

"Who are you?" Her mother's voice, raised, confused. Trenna shoots to her feet and darts into the bedroom.

"It's me. It's just me, mum." Trenna sees her mother shrug off Kina's arm and take a step away.

"Who are you? What are you doing in my house?" Her eyes go wide, and she takes a step back, hitting the dresser. Old perfume bottles, mostly empty, rattle hollowly, one falling to the floor with a low thud, not breaking. Trenna steps further into the room, unsure.

"It's me. Kina." She puts her hands out and takes a step forward. Completely sure of her safety, trusting in their mother to recognise her. She forgets Trenna, sometimes, but never Kina. Trenna sometimes wonders what it is like, to never be forgotten. She watches as Kina takes another step closer, and wonders how she can so wholeheartedly trust someone not to hurt her when she has known her for so long. It is the people who are a part of your life who hurt you the most, Trenna knows. For how can someone you don't care for hurt you? They can't. At least, not in any of the ways that matter. But then, it's the betrayal of trust that hurts. And if you never give your trust to someone, give them the choice of whether or not to hurt you, then you're not really living, are you? Life is pain, and pain is life, and there is no one without the other. And she has been through too much pain to trust her mother again.

So she is ready when her mother picks up the mirror from the dresser and tells Kina to get out of her house. Kina's face crumples. "Mum?" she asks, pleadingly. Their mother narrows her eyes.

"I am not your mother. I don't know who you are, and I want you to get out of my house. Now."

Trenna makes a small noise as tears fall down Kina's cheeks. And their mother turns. "Trenna, do you know this person?" she asks.

Trenna's in shock. She cannot move, cannot breathe. She wonders if this is what hatred feels like, because, at that moment, she believes she hates her mother, just for the look on Kina's face. She never needed her. But her sister does. And she hoped their mother would always be there for her. Because Kina needed her to be there.

Kina runs from the room soundlessly. Trenna listens to hear if the door slams, but the sound doesn't come. Which means Kina is in the house. She can find her later. Right now, she has to deal with her mother, and the anger she feels coursing through her veins. Because it's selfish. Selfish of her to leave her children to fend for themselves, to deal with their grief over losing a father, a friend, half their world, as she is trapped in her mind, her world of fantasies. Selfish of her to think that she is the only one who can't deal with this. Trenna can feel the world slipping away, but she holds onto it, will always hold on. She thinks her mother weak for not being able to.

"She's your daughter," she makes herself say. She goes to her mother and, with a calmness she does not know she had in her, gently takes the mirror and places it back on the dresser. Bewildered, her mother lets her lead her to bed, to tuck her in. Once her mother is tucked into bed, Trenna leans down and, her emotions raging inside of her, smoothes her hair back, as Kina did minutes ago. Her mother smiles serenely, closing her eyes.

Trenna leans closer, brushing her hair from her ear. She whispers, quietly but fiercely. "She's your daughter, and you've always loved her best. And that's ok, because she needs you." Her mother makes a small, strangled noise of confusion that she ignores. She grips her arm, tight, to hold her still. "Come back, mum. But don't do it for me. Do it for her. Because I stopped needing you a long time ago."

Then, she pulls the blanket up to her mother's chin and turns away, closing the door behind her as she leaves the room, and goes to find Joss. Because she is ok with accepting hugs from her sister and Joss, seeking solace, but she was never one to give it; she simply doesn't know how. She is too full of anger, fire, to comfort someone, to soothe the fire within them; she would only fan it higher. And she knows this, accepts it.

She closes the door quietly behind her, goes to Joss's, and tells him where to find Kina, after promising to stay safe. Then she goes, through the city, towards where she last saw the bomb. She has other business in the city, largely involving a dead boy who is not, apparently, dead. This does not seem safe, to her, at all. But what is life without danger. Or death without life.