"No, for our family is our hope for our futures." The booted figure came into view, revealing a girl of the same apparent age of Eric, but with the eyes of woman far older than that. Her 5'6" frame was toughly muscled and enclosed in leathers meant for fighting not for show, though they had the same effect. Her hair, likely to hit her knees when unbound, was tightly french-braided. "Merely our love is put on the back burner, husband mine."
"I rather be fighting by your side. If I remember rightly, I even put that in the vows."
"You did, but the children need to be raised by someone who still has the innocence and hope to believe everything will come out right in the end." She choked, "I don't have that anymore, and there was too little of it left when I did lose the last of it. Better they know their mother fights for them to be free, then grow up like me." She shuddered. "I don't want to face their eyes if they grow up to be like me. That shall break me where nothing else has before."
