@any || this is post-SWP, she's coming to check in on everyone!  

Bexley stands in the damp sand and looks out across the Mors and feels something like pain ratcheting deep inside her chest. In the wake of disaster, very little of their home feels real - not the citadel, not the empty streets, not the solemn quietness of new graves being dug - but the Regent cannot simply sit back and pretend it’s not happening. What kind of leader would she be?

Seraphina has remained lamentably silent, and Bexley has to stand in her place now. But it feels wrong. Those footsteps are far too large from someone like the golden girl to fill. She is not diplomatic, or cool-headed, or smart beyond the scope of emotionality - how is she supposed to measure up to their Sovereign and especially in a situation like this? Solterra does not look up to her in the same way that they do their queen, and for good reason, but Bexley’s grasp of control on the citizenry is slipping out of her hands as quickly as sand through her fingers (when it’s not as wet and dense as it is today).

Her foggy brain takes longer than it should to recognize the sound of an intruder. (This is something else she’ll punish herself for, but only later, when no one can be witness to that kind of weakness.) When she does hear it, though, it’s no more than a second until she’s skidding off toward the gates to track down whoever’s just entered the Court, poised and predatory as ever, the only thing setting her apart from her regular self the presence of newly visible ribs and the look of exhaustion in her blue eyes.

She’s pleasantly surprised to find it’s only Araxes on the steps, someone she’s bumped into time and time again. Bex slows and stops in front of the Denoctian with a raggedy smile and a subtle tilt of her head - Araxes, she greets, and her voice is almost warm. What’s going on?

@Bexley || yay!

Help… from Denocte.

Almost she smiles, then, half a grin splicing those bone-white lips in two. It’s not a humorous situation - not at all (even as they talk she feels frost creeping up her fetlocks, shivers at the white crust of ice in her hair) - but there’s nothing she can do about it except laugh and move on. Dwelling on the issue will only make it worse. So she grinds her teeth against the cold and stands straight-backed in the wind, stoic and calm.

She remembers when Araxes and Torstein were the only Night-Day conspirators, and how she had laughed at them under her breath, wondering how a Solterran could ever get themselves involved with someone like that - how stupid could someone be to fall for a girl from Denocte? And then she had done it herself, and here they are, polar opposites in icy sand.

The world is strange.

Most of us are okay, Bexley answers, but her mouth twists awkwardly. She’s not sure how much to divulge - if it’s okay, if it will ever be okay, to talk about the bird-boned weaknesses of her own home. Cold but not injured. Food is the problem. People are hungry, most of them are stuck inside, and they’re angry about it. Her voice is flat and unwittingly harsh, and she stares at Araxes with a gaze that is deeply, deeply troubled.

And Denocte?

She does not ask of Acton, as much as her heart asks for it.