Mother

Upon hearing the familiar voice of Lady Nicole Sterling through the Whispering Stones, Dove froze. She looked up at Elinor, heart pounding. A ghost of Dove’s recent threats seemed to hang over them:
 
“I am going to kill her,” Dove had said. “She ruined everything for me, and I will track her down and kill her if it’s the last thing I do.”
 
And now, like a gift from the goddesses, Lady Sterling had returned to them.
 
Dove’s vision turned red. Lucy, her apparent Patron, Fitz’s rescue — all was immediately forgotten. In a flash, Dove burst out the door of the carriage before Elinor could stop her. (Bonus action disengage lol.) As she dashed away down the street, she thought of the woman in Lord Frost’s bed, blonde hair billowing over her naked back. She thought of the way the woman had clutched the blankets to herself while Lord Frost roared at her. She had taken care to hide most of her face, but those piercing eyes stared daggers at young Dove. The same piercing eyes that regarded her coolly on her first day working at the Sterling estate, and most of the days since -- it was honestly a marvel Dove had never put it together herself. Now she had a chance to see those eyes one more time, finally understanding their true identity.
 
And, more importantly, she had a chance to see the light leave those eyes as she drove her blades into the woman’s heart.
 
After a tense short while of sneaking around the Divine Estate, she found her. Certain she was where Nicole could not see, Dove stared at the back of her enemy’s familiar blonde head from the shadows. Bloodlust coursed through her body, so powerful she could almost taste it. She pulled out one of the daggers tucked into her bodice. All that was left was one well-aimed flick of the wrist, and all the lost years of Dove’s life could at last be avenged. She raised her arm and —
Just then, Nicole turned a little, allowing Dove a glimpse of her face for the first time. It looked… different. Like maybe it had healed strangely. It brought to mind the last time Dove had seen her. The Countess was beaten and bloodied by the explosion that had blasted her through the library wall. She was barely conscious, and Dominic was bent over her, carefully brushing the blood-soaked hair away from her face. Such a tender touch from a man who, despite everything, still cared for his mother.
 
One more memory thrust itself forward in Dove’s mind — her own words, weeks and lifetimes ago at the Sterling’s country estate: “Elinor, promise you’ll tell me if I ever become too much of a danger to your family.”
 
A pit formed deep in Dove’s stomach. She looked down at the weapon in her hand. In a moment, the all-consuming thirst for revenge drained from her, leaving her hollow.
 
Then, Dove did what she’d always done when unsure what else to do. She ran away.
 
***
 
Dove hadn’t been to her parents’ graves since she was a child. She wasn’t even sure why she felt drawn there now. Maybe telling Dominic that she's never seen their ghosts made her want to demand answers from them. Maybe she wanted to pretend she had someone to turn to for advice on what to do. Or maybe Dominic and Nicholas’s mother’s return just made her feel unbearably alone.
 
It took Dove some time to locate their exact spot. The last time she was there, she had been a child, and her mother's grave was still a stark brown pile of dirt visible from afar. No fancy Druid magic for her lowly nobody-of-a-mother’s grave. No one to even mourn the woman besides the hungry child she’d left behind. The grass over her body would have to grow back on its own.
 
Dove had been so lonely at her new home (if you could consider that awful orphanage a “home”) that she'd taught herself to sneak out. The night she finally got her mother’s old kitchen knife to flick open the lock on her ground-floor window, she didn’t know where else to go but the cemetery. Her mother had never been especially affectionate towards Alidove — the loss of her husband was too great to let her love anyone else, as she explained to Dove in her more self-pitying drunken moments — but she was still her Ma. The closest thing to comfort that Dove had.
 
Young Alidove had wandered the cemetery as the sun slipped below the rooftops. She found the two small headstones, the first looking well/tended to, and the second looking much newer than the first with a bed of dirt stretched out below.
 
Hugo Quickspell
beloved husband
1759-1783
 
Oragrace Quickspell
1760-1788
 
Dove hadn’t quite learned to read yet, but nonetheless she had run her finger over what she guessed was her mother’s name. Small and shivering, she had fallen asleep on top of the dirt until rainfall had woken her up just a short time later. On her way back to the orphanage, she’d discovered that a stocky dwarf boy had been following her. She and Berig became fast friends, and Dove never went back to her parents' graves again.
 
Now, present day Dove wandered the cemetery once again. It took some time, but she eventually found her parents’ plots. There was now plenty of grass over her mother’s final resting place, unkempt and overgrown. The twin headstones seemed much tinier than Dove remembered, and both were clearly worn by the weather of many seasons. Dove guessed she was probably the first person to walk this way in a long time, let alone pay any respects to the souls buried here.
 
She sat between her parents’ graves and traced her fingers carefully over their names, just like she had done when she was five. It was a poor imitation of Dominic’s gentle care towards his mother, but it was all she had.
 
“Hey, Ma,” Alidove said. “Been a while.”
 
Just then, the events of the last few weeks seemed to crash over her all at once. She doubled over under the weight of them all, and cried.