#huh it's been a while since i've touched the 'ava finds (more) family' universe hasn't it

[jtl07]

Rest your head - forest

variation 1

it doesn't take much to take Ava's breath away - she loves the world so much that even the tiniest thing (a speck of growth within a crack of concrete, the hint of a nose and whiskers at the edge of a window, the smallest of Beatrice's freckles) will make her stop and stare, mouth ajar, eyes the widest they can be, trying to take it all in.

it's easy here to be breathless, among trees and rocks that have been here for generations, overlooking a vista that took them the whole morning to finally see. Ava turns to Beatrice but no words come out - but Beatrice smiles; understands. she takes Ava's hand and leads them to the base of one of the trees, sits them down in the shade silently. Ava hears the unsaid: 'rest your head, lay down your burdens, be with me, here, now.'

she doesn't know who or where the words are coming from, from Bea, from the trees, from her own heart; knows only that she should listen.

so she does. Ava tucks herself into Beatrice's side and sighs, feels it echoed in Beatrice's own chest as she presses her palm there to feel her breathe, to feel the life pulsing there - pulsing all around.

she closes her eyes and smiles, feeling so, so alive.

**

variation 2 - refers to the "ava finds (more) family" 'verse

"you'll know it when you see it," her aunt had said when she'd led Ava to the edge of the forest she and her sister - Ava's mother - had played in when they were kids. she'd given Ava a gentle hug, told her to take her time, her eyes heavy with a sad sort of certainty that comes with knowing what's been lost, tinged with the bittersweet of having found something a touch too late.

Ava walks carefully, silently as Beatrice has taught her, though part of her wants to make her presence known - who knows what ghosts still live here, who play here still. tries to imagine: her aunt and her mother, running along the path Ava's walking on now, playing hide and seek, playing tag, playing house; young and giggling and alive.

sunlight and birdcall filter down from the canopy and Ava pauses to take it all in. wishes - as she often does when she's somewhere her mother has been- for a way to bring the past into the present. she's crossed from one realm to the next, from life to death to life again so surely she could do this. surely she deserves this - a moment, just one, to feel her mother's love.

when she tells this story to Bea later over the phone, she'll say she swears she felt a tug - like someone pulling on her hand. Ava follows it, swears she also hears someone laugh, lets her heart carry her through the forest, until she finds it.

her mother's tree.

she knows it not by instinct but by feel, traces her fingers over the name carved into the trunk like an old scar, like an old friend. Ava breathes it in, the time, the tears, and rests her head against it as if to press its presence into her own skin. proof of life, proof of love, proof of where she's from.