They broke away from the meeting without anyone taking notice of them, following after Marisol once she had begun her trek away from the meeting and the judgmental, prying eyes that surely trailed after her. Skirting around the berth of the citizens with quiet speed, they followed the Halcyon Commander a good distance away before attempting to get her attention. The last thing that either of them wanted was for anyone from the meeting to follow and nose their way into what was presumably going to be a very private conversation, especially that loud-mouthed buckskin.

Ard didn’t like her. They’d never met and quite honestly, he hoped that he never had the displeasure of meeting her face to face. She was too loud, too obnoxious, too whiny, and far too annoying to be someone he handled on a regular basis, but the young warlock found himself proud of the way that Marisol had handled the situation.

Together he and Erd followed within Marisol’s wake, but only when they reached a few meters away that he cleared his throat and called to her, knowing that she would recognize the hoarse rasp of his voice in an instant. “Mari.” Not ‘Marisol’, not ‘Commander’, not ‘Queen’. Just ’Mari’. There was no need for such frivolous formality when talking between family.

With the black cloak billowing around his petite frame, Ard stepped up to the bay woman and pulled the hood down from over his head, letting the heavy fabric rest around the base of his neck. Even when they delivered messages for the Halcyon, he and Erd had never adopted the proper ‘Messenger’ colors, choosing instead to wear their matching black cloaks with deep green stitching, much to the Commander’s chagrin. He folded his wings, feathers ruffling, and the moment that his gaze caught Marisol’s piercing pale grey, the nerves rekindled within his gut, churning and grasping and stealing his breath.

Doubt filled his mind. What if she hadn’t forgive him for his taciturn way of speaking the last time they had seen one another? What if she hated him? What if she, now a Queen, didn’t have time for them?

No, no. That couldn’t be right. Marisol had been the first person to welcome them to Novus. She had taken them in when no one else would, offering them protection and a purpose. The woman, stalwart and determined and stoic as she could be, had understood their desire for peace yet their drive to help, urging them to take up the mantles of Messengers for the Halcyon instead of risking their lives on the front line. They’d done that enough back in Luminous.

Even though his mind warred with itself, trying to justify what he was feeling versus what he knew, the silver warlock felt Erd shift and step up next to him, pressing their sides flush together as though knowing he was terrified. Glancing to his brother, whose identical features were twisted in concern but warm with love and adoration, Ard let out a long breath before facing the Commander once more. Hesitantly he met her gaze, emotion swimming in his eyes.

“C-can… Can we talk?”

"Speaking."

“Privately,” Erd added on the tail end of his brother’s request, looking up to Marisol and offering her a pensive smile.

There was a lot they needed to discuss. Not only did he have questions in regards to the Halcyon and the future of the unit, but he also knew that she probably had a plethora of questions for him. Unless Rhone had told her, Erd was pretty sure no one had informed Marisol that he had returned to Terrastella. The details were lost, still, and while he had plans to be completely honest, the last thing he wanted was for the revelations to have dire consequences against Aghavni and August.

The woman who had stolen him away? Manon? He didn’t care what came of her. ‘Mistake’ or not, she had caused Ard far too much pain and turmoil by stealing him away from Terrastella, rekindling the night terrors he had suffered from and only recently had begun to recover from, building upon those fears of losing one another, strengthening his anxieties and dangerous episodes of PTSD.

Erd could forgive her for everything she had done to him, but he would never forgive her for the crimes she had unknowingly committed against his brother.

Offering the Commander another sheepish, bashful grin of white teeth, the young warlock shrugged a slender shoulder. He remained pressed intimately against his brother’s side, standing flush against one another, their hearts beating in sync. “Hi, Mari. Um. Surprise, I’m home? And I think there’s a few things you should know, things that I found out when I was away.” ‘Taken’, more like it, but Erd knew he needed to pick his words carefully. The last thing he wanted to do was upset Ard. “But we really need to talk, if you have the time. I know a lot’s happened here...”

"Speaking."

They followed Marisol as one without question, neither one leading the other. Instead they simply moved together as a single being, each step in perfect time and harmony with the other, picking the same gait and speed without even needing to confirm it as they crossed the street just behind the Halcyon Commander. Somehow, Ard knew that he and Erd had grown closer due to their absence away from one another. Somehow, someway, their bodies seemed to remember one another as though they had never been apart, as though they had never been separate beings but one single entity, strengthened now that they were together again. Perhaps, once upon a time, they had been.

Reaching the shady awning that assisted in providing them some semblance of privacy, Ard grew quiet as he turned his back on the street to focus entirely upon Marisol. There was so much to say, but honestly, he felt as though Erd should go first. His own words would come later, at least in depth, but he’d had his own journey the last few weeks.

Exchanging a glance with Erd, the younger twin cleared his throat. It would do nothing to rid his words of the perpetual rasp that coated them, however, but as he began to speak he did so heartfully while shifting closer to press himself flush once more with his twin. “Rhone and I went to Denocte,” he rasped out simply, not wanting to beat around the bush, “That’s where we found Erd.”

’Found Erd.’ The very words still ignited a dangerous fury within him. To think that someone had the gall to waltz into Terrastella and steal his precious, perfect brother away by means of manipulating Erd’s generous heart, with the intent on extracting information from him made Ard sick. Vespera have mercy if he ever crossed the bitch that took him. Erd said her name was ‘Manon’. He would never forget it.

"Speaking."

It was hard to see the emotion that swam upon Marisol’s face, the moisture in her eyes from unshed tears and the tension that lined her brow. Typically so stoic in the face of tumultuous uncertainty, Erd could only fathom how the heavy mantle of sovereignship mixed with the dutiful lifestyle of a Commander might alter the woman’s capabilities. Hopefully they would always be close to help her in whatever way she needed, but just as well he hoped that she knew she wasn’t alone in this endeavor.

Situating himself close against Ard’s side once again, their shared warmth a reassuring balm to their mutual anxieties, the elder twin listened as Ard curtly explained where he had been. Erd smiled pensively, an unsteady pinch to his eyes as he did so. Marisol stated to tell her everything, and so with an unsteady inhale followed by a trembling exhale, he did just that.

“I had been fetching some charcoals for Ard as a surprise when I met a woman on the cliff’s named Manon, from Denocte,” he began, picking his words carefully as he thrust his mind back to the evening of his capture, “She pretended she was hurt with a sprained fetlock, and asked me for help, and I… I believed her, so I agreed. I shouldn’t have, but.” He paused, shrugging a slender shoulder with blatant uncertainty. Ard had always told him that his bleeding heart would get him in trouble someday. Erd knew he shouldn’t be surprised when it finally came true, but he still felt like the world’s largest fool once he had realized what had happened.

“At first I was a little uncertain, but she said she was friends with Miss Moira, and I guess that chased away my worries. We’re friends with Miss Moira, and I didn’t think that she would keep friends that were untruthful. Anyway, I helped her back to her boat, and I… I honestly don’t remember much else after that. I don’t know what happened. When I woke up next, I was locked up in a room in Denocte. Manon wasn’t there, but I met a few others. Um. August and Agvhani. Turns out I was somewhere called the ‘White Scarab’. Have you ever heard of it, Mari?”

Erd hadn’t, not before that day. During his stay he had learned a little bit about the somewhat lucrative organization, quickly realizing that they had their hooves in quite a number of pies. There had been more than just a few rather infamous names being dropped during his time there, but the boy had kept quiet, knowing better than to offer much resistance in a place he knew so little about. ’Raum’ and ’the Proprietor’ were a particular two that he continued to pick up on, and every time he heard Raum’s name he would shiver.

“August and Aghavni didn’t seem very bad. They seemed just as confused that I was there as I was, but that Manon… I don’t think I like her very much, and I think we should keep an eye out for her. She can’t be trusted.” And from the sounds of it, she couldn’t even be trusted within the halls of the White Scarab, judging by the mutual reactions between Aghavni and August.

“Anyway, um. They let me go after figuring out that I wasn’t the one that Manon was meant to kidnap, and then Rhone and Ard found me and brought me home.” For emphasis, he puffed out his chest and stood a little taller, even though it hardly mattered when he barely reached twelve hands in height. Still, Erd smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring way, not wanting Marisol to truly worry. He was unharmed and fine, and other than maybe a little more cautious of women in peril, nothing had really changed. “I’m really sorry that I worried you and Theo. Ard told me that you two were really upset. I-I should’ve been more careful, and I’m sorry.” All he had wanted to do was help someone in need. Wasn’t that what the Halcyon were about? Protecting and helping those who couldn’t help themselves? Yet now that trust was broken, and perhaps now he understood Ard’s paranoid tendencies better than ever.

"Speaking."

Through it all, Ard remained silent. He had heard the tale many times before that moment and knew every detail by heart, memorizing every word that his brother said down to the way his lips moved when telling it. No matter how many times he heard it, the clench within his chest would never fade, the painful ache of his heart threatening to steal his breath at the thought that Erd had almost been taken away from him for good.

What would he have done? If he had lost Erd, if his brother was gone for good and they weren’t able to find him… Ard knew what he would do, but he wouldn’t admit it out loud.

Without his brother, life wasn’t worth living.

A pale, pierced ear tipped in Erd’s direction as his twin went on, mentioning Manon. Immediately the younger warlock bristled, pressing himself more firmly against Erd’s side, his expression growing dark and dangerous.

That bitch. Anger boiled in his gut at her name, his teeth grinding against one another in fury. A body of vivid red, marred with white hairs and dark spots like birdcatchers. A long mane and tail of white. Bright blue eyes. Ard hadn’t seen her, but he had painted her using his brother’s description. It was like when he closed his eyes he could see her as Erd explained in great detail what she looked like, and he had put ink to paper to paint an image that Erd claimed was in her likeness.

“... I painted a picture of her,” Ard grumbled out lowly as they turned to follow the newly crowned Commander, “I’ll paint more, so we can plaster her fucking face all over the city.”

Thanks to Vreis, Ard hated war and violence and pointless bloodshed… But for Manon, the sneaky, thieving bitch that she was, he would make an exception.

"Speaking."

Dinner sounded amazing, but even the thought of a freshly prepared meal didn’t warm his heart quite in the same way that Marisol’s compliment did. He preened a little under the praise, smiling innocently from his spot by his brother. It wasn’t very often that Marisol gave out compliments, and Erd soaked it all up like a dry sponge.

As they turned to follow the newly crowned Sovereign he remained closely pressed to Ard’s side and without even trying they fell into step with one another, moving in tandem as easily as breathing. Whether it was for his own comfort or to reassure his twin that he was home and was safe, Erd wouldn’t say. Maybe it was for both of them, because being apart just didn’t feel natural.

Keeping his ears forward and listening as Marisol went on, the warlock’s brows furrowed as he pondered just when it was they had gotten back into Terrastella. Since Rhone was land-bound and couldn’t fly, they had decided to travel with him on foot instead of taking to the skies to get home even faster. The journey had been long but an easy one, and Erd had spent the travel refamiliarizing himself with Ard and getting the wonderful opportunity to get to know Rhone a little more.

He wouldn’t mention how Ard had cried every night since they had been reunited. That detail was far too intimate to share, and he knew his brother wouldn’t appreciate being outed like that.

Instead, he picked up the pace in tandem with his brother and followed their Commander-turned-Queen with a bright, charming smile. “We got back yesterday evening. I wanted to come and see you then, but we were exhausted and went straight home to get some sleep.” There were many tears shed between the two of them once within the safe privacy of their own small abode within the city, finally reunited after far too long. Gentle touches, soft promises to never be apart again. Erd was already looking for a way to make that happen. “There’s a lot I feel like I’ve missed… I mean, you becoming Queen! I’ve heard about Asterion and the others, but aside from that, I feel so out of the loop. Is the Halcyon alright? We should probably go check in with Theo, too...”

"Speaking."