isolt griffin
Had she breath she would have withheld it, bated, until such a time as the park-prowling rogue would have seen fit to answer her. For so many, both vampire and otherwise, Syn was a veritable cornucopia of lust, sex, gluttony, and lascivious indulgence... a stomping ground for the vicious and the obscene, a buffet from which the seedier of Sacro's residents might scavenge desire and macabre fulfillment. But for Isolt it had only ever been a place of ruin, of fear, and of death; so much of herself had perished within the shaded nooks of that place. So much of herself had been stolen that she would never again be whole. Not truly. And to suspect that a similar fate might have befallen this young man and his Tetra was barbed wire taken to an already-ailing heart. At least, from all appearances, this young man had been spared Syn's matron's greatest blow.

Attempting to swallow past the fibrous knot that has gathered in her throat proves a great feat in and of itself as Isolt is only initially capable of offering a somber nod to his proclamation, her words choked when they finally arrive upon her tongue. "Yeah... I know what you mean." It is raw, bleeding honesty laced with the innocence that has always been hers, though somehow it cannot even begin to express what has transpired in their respective lives. She is both troubled and befuddled by the conviction that swathes his next words as he speaks of his desire to return to that nightmarish place. But before she can speak (though it is some debatable matter whether she might have possessed the proper words), he moves from his place aside the towering oak, peeling himself from the gnarled bark to approach her.

Despite the instinctive aversion to the proximity of others that has recently developed within this girl who had once relished the company of another, Isolt does not wane... nor does she retreat. Instead she simply lowers her eyes to the photograph he offers. A photograph softened by a million tender caresses, a photograph that shines as a beacon of past gaiety, resilient and steadfast even with the passing of time. Isolt smiles despite herself, a small thing though it is, for she too possesses such a photograph. In her mind's eye she imagines it perched upon the mantle in the apartment she had shared with Harley, nestled in a frame that had, against all odds, withstood the tests that time had wrought upon it. Three young children huddled together, gangly arms flung around one another, beautifully genuine and toothy grins of delight spread across three cherub-like faces. Harley, Isolt, and Aaron had proven just as inseparable in later years as they had been at the time of that particular photograph, and the nostalgia for that time crashes upon her in a wave that is so great that it was nearly overwhelming. Whatever words linger upon her lips cannot be trusted to withstand, and so Isolt simply nods her understanding, though truly the identity of the other boy is wholly lost upon her.

His final question sees her hesitate, crystalline blue eyes searching his... for what she cannot possible be certain. The answer, she finds, is far more complex than would have been believed. Risque had taken from Isolt a great many things, the life she had known before perhaps chief amongst them. Everyone she had ever known now thought her perished, leaving her wholly alone in this world that no longer made sense. And perhaps none did she mourn as fiercely as she did Harley, her dearest and lifelong friend... her pack, as it were. "You could say that," she finally offers. "I don't have anyone anymore. It's just me."