don't ask if I'm happy, you know that I'm not
but at best, I can say I'm not sad.

She has kept herself from going back for so long that when she does, it is like ripping off a bandage when the wound is still scarring.

It hurts.

Aghavni's breathing comes in slow, even twos: in, out. In, out. In, out. But for all the good it does her, her heartbeat is still like a dove's, so quick she can hardly tell when one ends and the other begins. She starts to feel dizzy after a time, and slams down a copper piece on the nearest food vendor's booth, her telekinesis shaking as she takes the candied apple, her smile wobbly as she nods to the merchant and continues walking, walking, walking.

The caramel has yet to set, and drips a snaking path of sugar after her.

Her hooves click evenly (in fours) down the cobblestones, and festival-goers whisk their trailing hems out of her way, and fire dancers shake their jeweled limbs, and then she is at the winding alley that leads down to the White Scarab.

Her heart is in her throat. Aghavni has never understood the metaphor before but she thinks she does now, as she hesitates by the mouth of the alley, her leg lifting, then dropping, then lifting again, until in frustration she bites into her apple and forgets it is hot and whimpers as she scalds her tongue.

There is no one waiting for her there. Not Father (who is across the seas), not Minya (who disappeared into the night), not August (who had followed her to her castle and stayed). The Scarab is not her home anymore.

But it has never stopped feeling like one.

Caligo's night has pulled a blanket across the sky, and the smoke from the bonfires curdles across the dark to snuff out the stars. Where she stands, the shadows gather so thickly she thinks she is choking. Raggedly Aghavni takes another bite of the apple and moves her legs until she is walking away from the alley, her steps mechanical until her eyes squint under bobbing lantern light, where there are eyes that linger and faces that gawk attached to them.

Her hair drapes like a pale sheet over her neck. She had left her gold spikes in Solterra and she feels bare without them, a child again, all grey eyes and black curls and silent tears. She should not have come alone, and without telling anyone. Maybe August would have accompanied her. At the very least, she could've made Kite come with her, however much he muttered about the countless tasks he still had left to do. ("Poor Kite," she'd say to him, her eyes widening in pity, "I should pay you more." To which he would spit, "You don't pay me at all. I am doing this for your father.")

There is a tavern not far from the Scarab who's owner had once accused them of stealing away all his business. Aghavni had flicked a gold piece onto the counter, smiled with all her teeth, and gestured towards the few stragglers that remained while saying that evidently, they hadn't stolen enough. Her hooves head there of their own accord and she is too tired to change their minds. Perhaps with her hair down, she won't be recognised.

But before she makes it to the grimy, swinging doors, her knee knocks into the legs of a passing boy. "Oh, I apologise," she says, dragging her head up towards him, until her gaze snags on the lemon cake he holds. The words tumble out before she can stop them.

"Did you get that from Talan's father?" The icing pattern is faintly familiar, and it is too sophisticated to be done by Talan himself. She blinks, realising he might not be a local, and nods towards a nearby booth. "From him, I mean. They make very good sweets." 

When she looks back towards him she smiles, but the effort, she discovers, is draining.