But it was something - the barest flicker of acknowledgement - 

She keeps leaving offerings, keeps leaving her own blood - keeps taking books down to the Tomb to do her studying, when Ellyn is asleep or not up for hanging out - sometimes (increasingly) outright sleeps in the Tomb - swims laps in the salt water (hey, it's good exercise, once she stops nearly drowning herself) and does some of her drills by the altar - 

She swears she studies better here, somehow. Sleeps better, trains better, gets over her bruises faster - she isn't sure what it is, but her mom's sepulcher is somehow more alive than the rest of Drearburh.

"Gideon," Elllyn says one day.

" - Yeah, what's up?"

"I think you're spending too much time down there." She's not lonely, you're lonely. Shut up.

...???

"Why?" she asks, crossing her arms defensively. 

"Because-"

"I miss you."

"...We're still spending time together, though. In training and studying and stuff." She isn't looking at Ellyn, gaze instead at her feet. 

"Yeah, but... What about time not doing that?" Ellyn has grown to like have Gideon around a lot, these past couple years, even if she doesn't quite know how to articulate what she wants.

"...Training and studying's most of what I do - down there, too. I just..."

Unhappy sigh.

...Unhappy, awkward squirm. "What else do you want to do? And - how often?"

"I don't know. Something that's- just us? Without, um, pressure."

Aaaaa but she needs to get better and she's always behind and she needs to work  -

"If that's what you need," she says, quietly, trying not to let her anxious internal voice show on her face. 

Ellyn decides that now is a good time to check how good she's gotten at the hugging action.

Gideon stiffens -

- Then relaxes into the hug, and even hugs back (clings a bit more desperately than she'd like to admit) after a few moments. 

"I want you," she says, her voice cracking a bit, face pressed into Gideon's shoulder.

Hug! "You have me. I'm yours. I just - I want - "

It's time for her voice to crack. The words tumble out of her, so quickly they're nearly incomprehensible: "I know she isn't real - I know the Body's there but I've made up the person in my head and I know I'm only making up that she's listening to me - I know that even if she looks like me and even if my blood works it doesn't matter, she probably isn't really my mom and motherhood doesn't mean anything anyways, and I know it's all pointless - and I know you matter more than me and everyone cares about you more than me and she pays more attention to you than me anyways, I care more about you than me, but - but I - "

"I just want to pretend."

"I don't matter more than you," she snarls. "Gideon, you- you're important!"

Yeah she's crying now. 

More hug? And as long as she's cribbing from Gideon's playbook anyway, "Don't talk bad about my friend," she mumbles. "I'll beat up anyone who talks bad about my friend."

She's feeling crappy enough that she can't even properly giggle at that. 

"You make me feel real," she mutters into Ellyn's shoulder after her sobs have had a chance to peter out.