All that she is and all that she was and all that she knows have faded into hour after hour of counting stars with Michael beside her. His smile is slow and soft and sweet, a bandage to the weeping wound that is her heart. Day by day, he pulls her nearer, wrapping Moira Tonnerre about his little finger with all the ease of a skilled weaver. Perhaps he has ensorcelled her, spelling her into the easy bliss that it is to be beside him. After all, Michael is like sunlight, and as a sunflower she turns her face toward him even when her eyes are closed. 

She’s taken to trying new teas he brews up, hunting down flowers when he feels that the city is too much, or pulling salt from the sea to rim cups and giggle when he puts his lips on them anyway. 

They are, she is quite certain, absolutely ridiculous at the worst of times and utterly foolish at the best. But the Tonnerre girl has given herself over to those gentle smiles and the way it is easy to love him as it is easy to love an innocent child who has spilled no blood and knows so little. 

But Michael knows much. He knows when Moira leaves to spend the day with Elena, when Elli comes over and it is time to paint and tell tales the whole night through without the interruption of silly boys who would only drive her wild or distract her completely. Other times, he knows when to bring little treats to the girls as they talk, and offer to walk with them as they stroll through the many beautiful parks within the city that smile with the taste of spring. 

Tonight, Moira longs for the delicate brush of gold along her side, but there is one she longs for almost as much. A dear friend who fled from her upon that beach. He left with so little a whisper, but she saw the determination in Tenebrae then that his fate would be his own choosing and not that of some proclaimed god on high. All she could do was watch as he walked away, and then she walked away, too. 

That night had been cold and lonely as she’d roamed the beach. No longer is Moira Tonnerre a waif of a thing, a ghost in her own halls to frighten those who work there all hours of the day from certain halls or the kitchen lest they fear she would take no food again and fall into a fit of sadness that would hollow her cheeks and carve her ribs in stark contrast no matter the dim light. Not at all. 

Filling back into her skin, she has settled as an old house settles when the new family moves in after years of putting up with them stomping up and down the stairways. She has settled into court once more where she dances with the lords who visit and smiles with the ladies. The Emissary is quick to offer treats and learn of the other courts, venturing into others from time to time, but no grand pilgrimage has yet been planned. 

Soon, she hopes. 

Tonight, there are other plans in her mercurial heart that she thinks of. Moira is the smoke from incense burning as she moves through her world and into that of the markets. Past them, further. At the edge of the city she waits and waits. Ten should be arriving anytime, an escort in tow to be his eyes.

She’d sent a messenger to him, requesting his presence once more in the City and refusing to take no for an answer. They needed to talk, and more than that she needed to see how he fares following...well, everything he’s been through. 

So the phoenix perches on the precipice of her city, ever watchful and patient and entirely too excited with anticipation only building and building as some great pressure waiting to explode. Soon. Everything would be fine soon.

It has to be, doesn’t it?