the firestarters always get the burns
and the good guys never get the girl
She remembers a whole lot of things, and on top of that, she remembers seeing a whole lot of things that could be, that would be, or that would never be. Her head seems full all the time; visions and memories tumbling all over one another. In fact - some of the visions aren’t even real, but are like dreams of a subconscious; visual projections that were not the surface-truth. Castile as a dragon might have been one of them, had she not known better.
He had been so convinced he was a monster, she knew it to be truth before she came here. Before it became reality, she knew.
Yet vision and reality are still two different things. There is a difference between knowledge and experience, and so when he first comes into view, wings, claws and all, it is indeed something she needs to process. Luckily for her, she knew where he would be, his flight path known to her like any other’s path is known to her in the last minute before it happens - it is how she finds others nowadays. And so, she gives herself the precious, but increasingly rapidly beating heartbeats, that she needs to study him before and when he lands.
He greets her with Hello, stranger, perhaps as if to redo their last conversation, or simply because he likes using this word for her in a mock greeting. This time, she does answer, and neglecting the warning signals of coming close to a predator - she knows it is still him - she nears him and stretches out her nose in greeting.
He smells much more of sulfur and fire than he usually did, but otherwise he seems to be the same. ”Good afternoon, Your Majesty. My name is Ilma.” She would have greeted nearly anyone - any new king - that way, and perhaps, he deserves the normal, casual greeting of a diplomat - one who can ignore the fact that he’s permanently shifted into something that is in particular, not a horse.
”I figured I have a reason to stay, now.” she tells him more seriously. She tilts her head at the large figure before her, contemplating for a moment if she should ask. If he can guess what she probably knows about, and if he had thought about what he should do.
”Have you told them yet?” she asks him, eyeing him almost suspiciously - probably not, she thinks. Wouldn’t things have changed in her mind’s eye, otherwise? The shock would be less if she knew beforehand.
@[Castile]