After endless minutes of just sitting perfectly still, alone with her thoughts and heartache, Beatrice prays.
It feels like forever since she's clasped her hands together, closed her eyes, and asked her God for anything. Having their prayers stolen - it's one of those violations she can't quite put into words. Taking something so sacred and abusing it - she doesn't even want to think about it.
But now she prays, the portal sitting silent behind her, having just taken her love somewhere Beatrice will never be able to follow. She prays for Ava; for her safety and her health; for her joy and her freedom. She prays for her other sister warriors, depleted in numbers as they are, continuing to stand and be counted. She prays for the world; prays for their good sense and their salvation.
Then she prays for herself.
Beatrice asks for peace. She asks for the pain to fade. She asks for forgiveness, because what she promised Ava means she will not be able to keep her promises to Him.
To live her life, Beatrice will need to put herself first, and that is still something so foreign to her.
When her prayer is complete, she leans back, exhausted and aching. She can't even tell if it's physical or emotional. Maybe both.
She has to move. She needs to find the others. They need to know what's happened. She has to tell them the news of Lilith and Adriel and Reya. And Ava.
She doesn't move. This is the place she last had Ava. This is the place she last held her in her arms, desperately trying to remain optimistic for them both. This is the place Beatrice was just forced to let her go, or risk losing her forever. Getting up now feels like giving up. Leaving now will feel like -
She sighs, heavy with the ache in her heart that she's determined to keep as hope. Ava will come back to her, and then she'll be able to say those three words so Ava can hear them. Ava will come back, and then -
And then they'll have to do it all over again.
