Burke Residence

"As far as I know, I spent the whole of my life; aside from when I came here, in Norway," she said with a shrug. "Your grandmother always told me that I was born there, so that's what I've always believed. I am not, however, certain of where she and your grandfather came from," she said as she shook her head. "I never really made it to the point that I started asking them about themselves before they died."

She'd watched Sybil's expression when she'd began talking about falling in love with Markis and couldn't help the smile that tugged at her lips. She knew that look; had seen it before, and had even worn it before. It was the look of someone who was in the beginning stages of having their heart stolen by another person. She only hoped that the boy, or girl..she wasn't one to judge, reciprocated those feelings; otherwise her assassin days might not be as "over" as she'd hoped they would be. "So tell me something," she said. "If I'm not prying too much," she added hastily. "But you got a look on your face when I started to talk about falling in love with your father. Might I be the hopeful mother that there's a special someone in your life?"

She smiled to Sybil's comment about being Nord. But she frowned at the next words from her daughter and listened silently while she explained things. She hummed thoughtfully before she responded to what Sybil had said. "I've seen people fall for someone that they couldn't have, and in some cases it can destroy them," she said softly. "Though. If this young man is a knight; I can't imagine that he would let something like that destroy him," she shrugged. "But," she added thoughtfully, a light sparking in her eyes. "Having someone around to help pull them out of it can often lead to that person realizing that the one who helped them out is a better match for them than the person they were moping over in the first place," she said with a smile. "But," she added with warning. "Be careful. I don't want to see you ending up as the one moping over him," she said sincerely. She might just have to put a little knight on his ass and retrieve his testicles as a trophy should he hurt Sybil. "I know I don't really have the right to tell you what to do, but I just don't want to see you get hurt," she added on a sigh. "Never run from love, because it's one of the best things in the world. But don't get too caught up on someone who does not, or can not, return those affections. I've seen what that can do to a person, and it's not pretty."

She would listen to what Sybil had to say, but when she called her mom her heart skipped a beat. She'd waited eighteen years; scratch that..most of her own life, to hear someone call her that. She did her best not to show any signs of making a big deal out of it, but when she'd begun to think that she would never hear someone call her that, it was really hard to contain her excitement at finally hearing it. However, she did manage to force herself to sit still and just smile at the rest of what Sybil had to say. "Two weeks is plenty of time," she said, teasingly. She'd imagined talking about these things with her daughter for the last eighteen years, but it still amazed her how easily this conversation seemed to be flowing. Though her heart did sink a little when Sybil said that she wasn't keen on assassins. "Sybil. I don't like to kill people. I came to Ireland when I met your father to get away from that life. Each time I take someone's life; it wears on my conscience, and I swear I can feel my humanity ebbing away bit by bit. Being an assassin, for me at least, has never been an easy choice. When I started I was young and naive. I had no idea what the life would do to me as a person. And then when I went back to Norway. It was the only thing that I'd ever known other than being a bar maid. I knew that being back in Norway would mean me ending up going back to my assassin's days one way or the other. I didn't choose to go back because I wanted to kill people. I chose to go back because it was that or wait for them to force me into it," she said on a sigh. "And I'd seen what they did to people who tried to stop being assassins; especially those of us who worked for the royalty of the land," she said shaking her head. "Being an assassin changed me. To the point that I didn't know if I would ever find something worthwhile about life again. I considered letting them do what they would to me after leaving, but then I would think about you and your father and the possibility of coming back to Ireland some day. It was all that kept me sane, and likely all that kept me alive. So when civil war broke out in Norway, I used it as a way to escape the life."

She'd smiled at Sybil's response to her comment about two weeks being plenty of time. "With love, anything is possible," was the only explanation that she'd offered. When Sybil commented about assassins she nodded. "Is it bad that I agree with that sentiment," she asked with a tilt of her head. "I may have been an assassin, but there is a difference in being an assassin because you're forced into it and being an assassin because you choose the life. I chose it originally, but I wouldn't have been able to say no anyway. Not with the king himself asking it of me," she said on a sigh with a shake of her head. "Exactly why I got the hell out of there," she said with a soft laugh. "Being an assassin is bad enough, but to be an assassin during a war," she shook her head again. "No. Not when assassination during a war involves killing people that you know their only wrong doing is being on the wrong side." She sighed again. "Besides. With the king's death, I knew I could get away. And I knew I had to get away before someone with power remembered my name and decided to rope me into being an assassin in the war."