As a child you would wait, and watch from far away.
But you always knew you'd be the one to work while they all play.

She returns from the Dale, and the silence hits her like a wet blanket. It is not the kind of silence that desperately concerns her; she knows that silence, the silence of a dying kingdom, but this is not quite that. This is the silence of a womb, the silence that hides the fact that the night is alive with secrets, a cover for whispers that fly between lips (or in this case, minds) hushed and urgent.

Her last conversation with her king had involved a fairly naked suggestion for the Valley to grab power. She hopes he's taken it to heart – that the silence here means the birth of plans, that he's thinking, considering, gathering his forces. She hopes she isn't wrong, that she is correctly figuring the nature of the silence. If he's letting the Valley die, so help her, she'll boot him first.

And so she steps inside the borders, closes her eyes, and calls for the king. Not with words, mind you, but with her mind. She knows he'll hear her. She knows the deal they've made that allows him to almost always hear her. And really it's so much easier when she's out and about, around late at night like she is tonight. No need to scare birds or wake up horses or anything like that.

She wants to know what he's planning. She wants to share her thoughts on the Dale. She wants to hear his thoughts on the Valley. She wants to know everything, or at least everything he's willing to tell her. She must look ridiculous here, standing just inside the borders, her face screwed up like a little kid making her first ever birthday wish. But instead of wishing for candy or rainbows or any of that other happy stuff that little kids tend to wish for, she's wishing for the king of the Valley (and her granddaughter's lover, but she doesn't know that).

Don't weep for me

LIBRETTE

Because this will be the labor of my love.

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