intraspective | To Live and to Die For

She never really gave up hope of getting back to Fandom.

But life went on.

Ino stuck around France for about three years, learning the language and stealing to live, before setting out to the Americas to see if she could find Fandom on her own. It took her another four years to reach Alexandria, Virginia.

She finally made it there in 1906, at the age of 21, and that was a triumph all on its own because she’d done it all while saddled with two children. Ino had never bothered getting the names of their fathers and while the children were unplanned, well, the thought of giving them up never crossed her mind.

They were hers in a way few things were.

Settling into Alexandria as close to the ocean as she could be, just in case Fandom ever appeared, took a lot of effort. Only her children, both boys, both blue-eyed and blond, kept her grounded there. It was for her boys that she found respectable employment as a teacher, weaving a web of lies about a dead husband and being a widow to spare them the shame of being labelled bastards.

Years passed and while many men came ‘round to her door, Ino never loved a single one of them. She bedded many, and eventually wed one--and he gave her two more bright-eyed boys to love--but she kept her heart closed up and never did the words ‘I love you’ cross her lips to any but her children. Ino was happy for the most part. She tried to be.

But she still cried every now and then about being left behind. And her rages were worse, sometimes lasting days and always, always leaving her pale and fragile-seeming after them. A little broken; a little lost.

She never told anyone where she’d actually come from but sometimes, if she was in a fey sort of mood and her children were all there warm and half-asleep, she’d tell fantastic stories about a school where magic happened and people could fly on brooms, walk up trees, and heal with a touch.

It was a fire that killed her. February 29th, 1928. 43 years old.

Stupid kids playing around with lantern oil and matches at the school. Temper flaring, and using training that she’d never really fallen out of practise of, Ino managed to round up most of the children and get them to safety.

They were told to stay out, let the fire run its course as the firefighters tried to stop it from spreading to the surrounding buildings. She went back in anyway, determined that none of the children--her children though not by blood--were to be left behind.

Seconds later the building collapsed inwards.

They never found her body; just a half-melted metal plate with a stylized leaf on it, carefully pulled from the debris.

And life went on without her.