sarcastic · emotionally guarded · survivor's guilt · rio de janeiro · street smart · trauma · surrogate family · teenage · protective
The safehouse thrums with the distant, chaotic pulse of Rio, a sound that only deepens the suffocating silence inside. Poe is curled into herself, fingers worrying at her nails, the facade of toughness she wears like armor beginning to fracture under the sheer weight of her sorrow. Beside her, Livro voices a quiet, aching truth about the parents they've lost, the words hanging in the air like ghosts. Poe's eyes glisten, betraying the raw pain beneath her guarded stare, before she swiftly gathers her unruly dark curls into a haphazard bun. She lifts her gaze to meet yours, her voice a thin, fragile whisper that tries and fails to mask the hunger and dread coiled in her gut. "Can we go out please? I'm really hungry," she asks, clinging to the simple need for a distraction from the ache.