Private Are Daughters Destined to became like their Mothers?

Dalia hadn't spent a lot of one-on-one quality time with Amber in a while. That was mostly her own doing; there was a lot going on in her head all the time and she didn't want to push all of that onto Amber when her sister seemed to be doing so well.

But she couldn't just ignore her forever, and more importantly she didn't want to. Dalia was an affectionate person by nature, and everyone she cared about gave her a slightly different spark of warmth.

Amber was no different in this regard, and so with her afternoon free, Dalia stopped outside her sister's bedroom door. She paused, considering if she should barge right in, but thought better of it. She might startle Waddles, and she didn't want to do that and start things off bad.

So she knocked much more gently than usual before opening the door. "Heeeeeey, Amber. Whatcha up to...."

Dalia saw the photo and immediately had to hide a frown. She remembered taking that one, and more vividly rememered burning her copy of it after it was clear that Pandora and Phaedra weren't coming back.

Busy. That wasn't really the right word, but it was good enough for the distance that Dalia had put between them recently. Outwardly, she'd been as affectionate as she'd always been, but this was where it had really been obvious - quality time together. She smiled, a tight expression as she stepped over the photo and crouched onto the floor next to Amber.

"You know," she said with a shrug, picking at one of the fresh scabs that she'd gotten from scraping herself up at a fight club meeting, "I just realized we haven't... I like, officially officially met Nathan the other day and I dunno..."

Dalia trailed off, not so much embarrassed as she was just ashamed of herself. For all her talk about how much she cared about the people that she loved, she'd kept the one she loved the most at arm's length out of some selfish...

"I just wanted to spend time with you, I guess. If you're busy, that's fine. I just figured..."

Amber did know Dalia better than most anyone else did. Better than Malara or Alexis, even. With a shrug she leaned back onto the floor, laying her head next to Amber and staring up at the ceiling. "Nothing gets past you, huh? You're a regular detective. I mean, there wasn't anything super specific at first, but..."

How to say this? Dalia's own feelings about Phaedra and Pandora were steeped in gross feelings that she knew would never really go away. Feelings that, regrettably, she could detect bubbling just under the surface whenever she looked at Amber with her shiny black carapace. With a sih she just kind of blurted it out.

"I wanted to just come and hang out, but... why do you have that picture? I mean... they... left us..." Dalia's words trailed as she spoke, what little confidence she had slipping quickly between her fingers like sand. She didn't know if Amber knew everything about why she hated Phaedra so much. Pandora was easy to explain, but Phae had a lot of baggage that Dalia didn't know if she was ready to confront again.

"No!"

Dalia was quick to respond, her hair frizzing up with static electricity as she shifted positions almost automatically to be on her knees in front of her sister. She didn't look hurt, but the expression was close enough to it to call it that. "I mean..."

She sighed and shifted again, hugging her knees to her chest. Dalia was always like that - always moving. It was like she couldn't sit still since she'd changed again. Since her extra limbs and arms had gone away and left her... nothing. The words that Destra had said to her still stung when she thought about them, even though she'd promised herself that she didn't really care.

"It's not... I can't forget, Amber. I can never forget what she did to me. I never really... told you. Chloe and Mal know but I never wanted you to- Phaedrea... when she was... she took..."

She couldn't say it. Even just trying to form the words made Dalia want to vomit. A bit of red leaked into her iris, like a burst blood vessel overtaking the green briefly. And then it shrunk back as she realized what was happening. "I know how you feel though. People still look at me like I'm just a copy of Malara. Even Thaniturge calls me Torling..."

Tentatively, Dalia reached out and took Amber's hand in her own.

"But we're not like them," she continued, a cold edge underneath the fragility in her voice. Like the surface of a frozen lake spiderwebbing out from a misstep. "You especially. You're... the sweetest, most considerate person I know, sis. You wouldn't..." another hesitation. And then she just shook her head, unable or unwilling to continue that line of thought.

Dalia shivered at the touch, but sighed and shifted so that she was sitting with her knees to her chest. She regretted even starting to bring up what had happened between her and Phaedra - what Phae had done to her. Now Amber would be curious. She would want answers that Dalia didn't want to give her. For her own sake.

"She hurt me... bad. Worse than Jax did," she mumbled, touching the place on her shoulder where the massive scars from her ex-boyfriend's claws had rent her years ago started. "She told me she loved me, and-"

Tears welled up at the corners of her eyes and she scrubbed violently at her face with the hand that Amber wasn't holding. Red streaks lined her cheeks from her fingernails, but she didn't seem to mind. "It was bad," was all she bothered to say more on the matter. "So you just... you have to trust me... when I say you... you're nothing like them."