DAWN
i just killed off what was left of the optimist in me
When she finally turns her hooves in the direction of Tephra, she is feeling defeated on top of all of the exhaustion that is setting into her bones. She tells the girls sternly to go home – Austra is distraught, and Isilme is irate, but she will speak to them again later. She will make them understand their futures as princesses, for even if Lie takes the crown away from her, they will still be royalty thanks to them. They need to start learning how to behave as princesses should, though she feels as though taming their spirits will take quite a toll on her.
She moves slowly now that she is on her own once more, her hooves tracing the borders of Loess, Taiga, and the rebel kingdom Sylva before they bring her to Tephra’s border, and despite their alliance she does not cross into the westernmost kingdom. She has stepped on too many toes lately, and though she doesn’t think it would ruffle Leliana’s feathers any, she simply doesn’t want to risk it. The optimism that she had sheltered and kindled through most of her life is slowly starting to fade away, bit by bit, and she doesn’t know if she can promise complete composure as she waits for the other queen.
Her mother should be here – in fact, she expects Cress to appear any moment and she longs to bury her head in her mother’s warm neck. Her mother doesn’t come, though, and she shivers from the sensation of being so terribly alone. Has something happened to Cress? She hadn’t seen her at the battle either, but perhaps she had been close to her queen in the center of the kingdom.
Lost in her thoughts, her brown eyes staring worriedly across the ruined kingdom, she barely begins to notice as the sun starts to slip down over the horizon. There is simply too much.
@[leliana]