the firestarters always get the burns
and the good guys never get the girl
He’d warned her once - but that same fact had been the light she saw. Still sees, now that she’s not greeted with a scowl, even if she and he had left in utter disagreement. She is curious, what had happened to the filly, yet if Sabra was any bit as fierce about protecting her child as Ilma had come to suspect, then they would have made it with or without Castile’s repentance.
Ilma smells a lot of smoke in Loess; reminding her of Tephra, of Magnus, but this place softens the fiery sting of sulphur (which is new and draconic, instead of old and volcanic) with pools of hot water and the smell of greens; grass, trees and undergrowth make up Loess’ habitable parts. She assumes Castile may have more children than the ones with Solace and Sabra, then; or other family members perhaps.
He’s shielding himself behind a regal, stern mask. One she so often wears as a diplomat, she knows he, perhaps, knew this meeting to be as inevitable as she, and yet knows not what to say, or do. Ilma is in a contemplative mood however; she doesn’t feel like chastising him. Perhaps she should have been more neutral towards his behaviour last time, her looks surely must have spurred him only into more anger. But the point was that she'd not been so different from Sabra, once. And that his anger had prevented him from seeing - something he, as not-presently-hormonal-and-in-labour, should have been able to suppress, should’ve asked before accusing Sab.
But that’s his dragonlike nature - something she thinks he still might not fully control, as easily as he seems to get upset. But even if he doesn’t fully control it, it is something he needs to live with.
His almost-overly-neutral greeting is something she can accept. In return, her diplomatic face is much the same when she dips her head in formal-like greeting of a ruler - one she admittedly doesn’t know so well as she’d hoped, perhaps.
There is time to fix everything, if one wants to. There is time to start over. ”You do,” she answers him. ”I figured it was time we talked.” About what, she doesn’t know yet; she lets it depend on his reaction. She has thousands of questions, for sure - or maybe just the one.
Is he still her friend?
@[Castile]
So this got a little deep and is a novel (: