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Love was supposed to be unconditional, Nysa knew, but she also knew that it wasn’t always and she had the scars to prove it. Familial love had never existed for her, and romantic love seemed to be out of the question since she freaked people out and had been described as “Acting heartless,” and “Creepily emotionless,” on more than one occasion.
Ilta was the first person to show her kindness. Well, not quite the first person, there’d been sympathy from a few people after seeing her scars, but the first person to really mean it. The first person to offer something other than pity and whispers behind her back. The first person to not comment on the scars that became visible as her shirt moved up. Ilta showed her genuine kindness and didn’t comment on any of her unusual habits. She seemed to understand and that simultaneously comforted and unnerved her. Nysa had never had someone understand before. Understanding meant that Ilta had to be familiar with something similar and that worried her. She’d seen Ilta in a dress and there were no obvious scars but that didn’t mean there weren’t any.
She asked Ilta about it four and a half months after they met. Ilta looked at her and said, “My parents never hurt me physically but they were never around. They insulted me and my siblings a lot, especially my youngest sibling.”
When they are seventeen and eighteen Nysa realises that she is in love with Ilta. After a few months she decides to tell Ilta who hugs her and tells her she returns her feelings. Half a year later they kiss for the first time and it is everything Nysa hoped for.
Ilta never makes her feel like she doesn’t matter. Even when they argue Ilta still makes her feel valid and they never argue for long anyway. Ilta values her as a person, as an equal, as someone she loves, and it is the best feeling Nysa has ever experienced.
Ilta’s family show her love too. They show her the familial love that she thought she would never experience. Temaru becomes like a sibling to her first, then Anatole later. Anatole is the brother she never knew she needed and Temaru is the friend she always wanted. Anatole is the best at providing comfort, the one of the siblings best used to navigating people. But, Nysa isn’t exactly normal and nor are the siblings and so sometimes Temaru comforts her. They are strangely gentle for someone so dangerous. Then again, Nysa’s dangerous too. The scars littering her body serve to remind her of that. The months she tries desperately to forget serve to remind her of that. Temaru understands that best. They’ve never been tortured but they’ve seen the aftermath of it before.
Love is supposed to be unconditional, Nysa knows, and she also knows that with Ilta and Anatole and Temaru it is. With her beautiful, brave, kind girlfriend Ilta and Ilta’s siblings who are her family too - confident, charismatic, sympathetic Anatole and calm, collected, deadly Temaru.