Oh, my. Oh my *goodness*. I don't know if I can properly express how fully I enjoyed this. I want to quote lines back at you, but there would be way too many. I adore the characterization and the beautiful, beautiful imagery that's strung all through this. Claire's layers here are lovely, and the I love the part about Claire and Maya's parallels, especially.

Seriously, just. Your writing style = for the win, and the way you handled this pairing = even further for the win.