Tomb Raider: The Legacy

Chapter 21: Demon

Every return was sad in some way - and that one was the most.

Anna was broken. She looked tremendously tired, but Lara saw beyond that. The girl had simply had too much in too little time. First, the horrible experience of Sri Lanka in summer. Then, from what she'd gathered from Selma, the school year didn't go well either. And suddenly, in winter, her parents fought seriously, her grandmother revealed her cancer and shortly after, died; she'd witnessed a brutal attack and also got her first period while the Gift manifested strongly in her and turned her in a puppet. They had not even celebrated her birthday nor Christmas, engaged in more urgent matters. For any teenager it would've been too much. And she, in most things, was like any other.

For her sake, Lara tried to make the return as painless as possible. So, the first thing was to manage that Niyol flew to England. The girl would recover faster from her sorrow if she could count on the beneficial company of the beloved stallion. Seemed that, after all, Lara would've no choice but to build a stable in Surrey and hope that the beautiful Navajo horse would adapt easily to the English climate.

Secondly, Lara made sure to locate Catherine Kipling - Kat -, Anna's best friend, and briefly explained to her what could be explained to a teenager with a normal life and no horrible secret in her life, outside the usual regrets of any family. Kat promised to show up soon in Surrey to be with her friend.

Finally, during the return by plane, Lara whispered in her ear that she and her father had "cleared up" some things, and that they would keep talking, that she shouldn't suffer for...

"I know." Anna cut; her gaze lost in the distance. "I've felt it."

The British explorer blinked slowly. "What?"

"Don't worry, Mom. I feel it. You radiate love." It was fun to see her mother raise her eyebrows and look at her, embarrassed. "I can't explain it to you. I'm sorry." Anna put her hand on her arm. "You used to radiate anger, rage, frustration. Now you radiate love. I can feel it. I don't know how, but I can feel it."

Lara was perplexed. "I suppose the change has also been noticed in him."

"No." Anna looked at her then. "He's always radiated love. Always." And fear, she thought silently. But the fear's gone now.

(...)

Every return was sad in some way, but that one was also disconcerting. At least for Lara, who found her mother, the uptight Lady Croft, running towards Anna with open arms and then filling her with kisses. She'd never touched or kissed Lara that way. In any way, in fact. So Lara looked away and pretended that she saw nothing while she was in charge of having the hired personnel carry the luggage of both back to their respective rooms; as well as managing that Niyol was provisionally taken to some communal stables in the area to preventively have a place of comfortable and gifted shelter until the inevitable stable ended up appearing somewhere in the area of ​​the manor. The things I do for love.

When she entered the manor's hall again, Anna had gone up to her room on the first floor, but Lady Angeline was waiting for her, circumspect and expectant.

"What do you want?" Lara said, sounding drier and more exhausted than she really wanted to appear.

"What do I want?" The lady pressed her lips, annoyed. "Well, a greeting wouldn't hurt. I've not seen you for months. You haven't stepped on this manor since before Sri Lank..."

"You spent years without seeing me, and it didn't cause you much grief back then." Lara cut.

Lady Croft took a deep breath and chose to change the subject. "The girl told me what happened. I'm so sorry for the Indian woman..."