please delete post

vox nihili wrote:As she took her child in her arms, she frowned at the girl, saying “You have been up here wasting time all morning. It isn’t raining very hard now—go tend to the crop out on the branches. Go on!”
Verdeyan ducked away before Jonalla could shove her, and made her way down the stairs.
She turned and walked out the back door, walking down the branch to the valley between two enormous forks in the branch. There the bark of the tree beneath her feet crumbled with age, decaying soil [/, in which all nature of plants spread their roots, turning leafy faces to the sky.
Creeping vines were trained over trellises, speckled with small orange fruits like tiny glowing bulbs.
Hunger gnawing at her insides, she plucked several of the fruits gulping their tangy flesh.
A sound behind her made her spin, dropping a handful of the fruits.
“No, no, it’s okay. It’s just me.” Gattlin stood there, his hands held up in a gesture of peace.
Wordlessly, she turned her back to him again, continuing to eat.
“Do you like them? They’re martinells, from seeds I found in an old chest. I’d never seen any before.”
“Mmm,” she muttered, now straightening up.
“Is she going to be okay?”
Her words were soft, distant.
Gattlin hung his head, reaching down to rip a weed from its spot rooted to the tree bark.
“I don’t know.”
Verdeyan stooped to pick at the weeds, their leaves prickling her hands.
He grunted, continuing. “You don’t know it, but Asabet wasn’t always like this. Not so badly, anyways. He started having fits long before I was born. As a young child, she was attacked by a tree leopard, which nearly killed her. Her parents even changed her name, to Asabet, for Osabetto, the first man to kill a tree leopard, back when the world was still young.”
Verdyean felt a pang deep in her chest, a spark of hatred igniting therein.
Her mouth formed a cruel line as she spoke.
“I was named for my great grandmother who was killed by a Raptein brave at the age of fifteen!”
She turned away from him suddenly, so he couldn’t see the anxious flush of her face. Her face burned with the telltale anxiety a liar feels when he utters a falsehood. She knew her last statement was an absolute lie, but the thought of such a simple statement could make him feel the burn of guilt in his soul made her mouth twitch in a spiteful smile. He should feel the same pain she did.
He stopped working for a moment, staring out into the gray skies, as if he could find a solution to all his problems written on the underside of the clouds.
For several more minutes, they continued working.
Gattlin stood, wiping debris from his hands, he called to her. “Go ahead back, I will tend to the rest of these crops.”
“Your sister will be angry to see me so soon.” She said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Spend it outside then.”
Half temped to begrudge him the pleasure of giving her a favor, she reluctantly wandered over to the opossum pen, sitting down to peer into the mists swirling below.
Gattlin felt his heart heavy in his chest, the pain burning a little deeper with every breath. “…Killed at age fifteen!” He could imagine the pain she felt. Her entire family ripped away the moment his arms pinioned her. What had he done?
He bowed his head, whispering an oath to the Spirits that she would not suffer more pain at his hands.