LYSSARA
Zirelle laughed for the first time on a Tuesday.
Not a sound that could be mistaken for something else. Not the small exhales the healer had been cataloguing since the third week as possible precursors to vocalization. A laugh. Full and sudden and completely committed the way Zirelle was committed to everything she did, without half measures, without testing the water first.
I was not ready for it. I had been ready for the mark's next activation sequence. Ready for the governance correspondence that had been building since Kaevra's last coalition report. Ready for Kaelrith's monthly visit, which was four days away, and which I had been preparing for with the specific discipline I brought to things that cost me something.
I was not ready for my daughter to find something funny.
