Her lavender eyes fall upon those scrawled words on the page, and the writing is hers but it looks so foreign. It does not remind her of pleasant conversations recorded neatly on paper in books with spines made as soft as a flower’s petal from weeks of use. The words cannot possibly be hers, for she has never felt so desperate, so helpless, and yet the tear tracks that have carved their way through soot and dirt smeared on cheeks say otherwise.

Asterion’s words fall upon the floor like raindrops and she thinks of all the knowledge she had once stored in such books as this one. How empty this one feels in comparison. Years of research and learning of flowers and plants and their properties. She could have given him any one of her books to learn from, and now? Oh, of course she knows it all by heart anyway, but it is the knowing that she can never go back and remind herself of whether this rare plant that only grows on the peaks of Veneror helps with cough or with restlessness.

When Asterion moves beside her, Fiona at last turns her gaze to his. Already she can feel the flood pounding at the gates of her chest. Her heart skids, crashing, and the dam, oh how it aches and groans under the weight. The only release from the building grief inside her is the moment he looks away, and she has nothing to say. No answer to give. She cannot find it in herself to say that he is right because her heart wants to cry that nothing will ever be alright.

Fiona looks at Asterion and sees a man who, perhaps, did not necessarily want to be King, for she can sense the weight he carries on his shoulders much like the weight that sits oppressively over her, leaving her heart racing and her lungs short of breath. But, in this time the court could ask for nobody better to care for and to love it than he. She can see it in the fleeting, soft smile he gets just before he speaks, and the way he watches the fireflies outside the window. Her spirit still mourns, but his gentle concern is a salve at the least.

She turns back to the notebook once more, and she grasps the pen more carefully than before, and she writes. Perhaps, she begins, one day I can show you some of those things you wish to learn. Fiona thinks it is the least she could do, for the ways in which he has opened his heart to their court, and to her. She breathes in, a slow, shuddering breath, but releases it with more composure. Though there is a tiredness to her eyes, a wilting to her shoulders like a flower in need of care.

If you’ll excuse me, I think I would like to get cleaned up, and the haunting shadow in her eyes is, perhaps, a litte less solid when she looks at him again. She stands slowly, and although she cannot quite cover the quivering still in her legs, it is not as powerful as it had been when she’d been running through the streets, away from all the remains of the things she treasured in her home. When she presses her muzzle to his shoulder she knows there’s no words necessary to show him what she is thinking. It is a warm feeling she leaves him with when she exist the small room. One that says simply, thank you.

Writing.