What did you say?

“Mama?!” Eve calls, quietly.
Oz jumps out of her skin. The first words out of Oz’s mouth are: “No, no, no. Shit! I love you, I’m happy to see you, but you shouldn’t be here!”
“But mama, please, wait, no—” Eve goes to hug her, as if to stop her.
Oz shrugs off her hug. “I could get caught, Eve! I’ll call you later.”
“Mama, no! Please, I need—!” At least stay long enough to bless her cane!
Stunned, Eve watches her go, long after she’s gone.
Oz really had told Haven's wards to reject her, hadn’t she? She didn’t want her to come home.
She doesn't have a home to go back to anymore.
This is her home, for good.
Eve lays back in the grass and stares vacantly up at the stars, processing.
Coran walks outside and turns the overhead light on, and curses loudly at the sight of the Astris in the grass.
Eve rises with a start and a curse of her own, rubbing at her eyes.
“What are you doing out here?!” What if she had scared Oz away?!
“I’m sorry!” Eve starts bawling, at the rage in Coran’s voice.
Coran blinks and compartmentalizes their anger, which is barely extinguished. They shake themself off and help Eve up.
While Coran guides her inside, she begs, “I want to go home! I want my mommy!”
Coran hums, awkwardly. “I’m… sorry?”
Eve sobs harder.
Coran sits her down and puts a blanket around her. She won’t stop repeating that. It sounds, to Coran, like a plea, like she expects Coran to somehow give her her mother in a basket. “There’s nothing I can do about that, Eve,” Coran huffs, not a mind reader, and figuring her mom is long dead by now anyway. Those Kivrians die between wing beats, it feels like.
Eve wants to scream — YES THERE IS — but the words won’t come out over what has devolved into a panic attack. Eve signs at them, urgently: Oz is my godmother. Oz, Oz, Oz. Your kabi was just here. Catch her and make her take me home, please. Please go after her.
“… I don’t understand sign language,” Coran admits, apologetically. The only word they understood was home. “What did you say?”
Eve turns on her stomach and muffles the scream that she had been holding back.