[AW] lord, if I make it through tonight; (dusk meeting)

[Theodosia]

let our eyes show the 
fire in our hearts tonight

When she hears the call, she does not think of an action other than responding, and when she hears Marisol’s words, she can feel her heart sinking deep into her chest.

This is not the same sort of missing as Erd, the kind where there had still been hope that he would be found and returned safely to them. This is hollow, and aching, and vicious as a riptide; the sort of lost where there was a very good chance that the three of them were far, far away from here, wherever Florentine’s dagger may have led them. It is the only reason she can think of, that they have been called here to be informed of the shift in power instead of forming up search parties, instead of tearing the island apart for their lost king, for their lost queen, for her consort; that deep in her heart, Marisol already knows they are the sort of lost that cannot be found until they willed it.

Her heart is a drumbeat within her chest, knocking against her ribs hard enough that she feels as though one might break under the pressure. “I’m afraid we must answer our own prayers now.” Asterion in the training yard, morning after morning, the handles of their spears clashing together as he had honed his ability to wield the weapon. She had come to look forward to their training sessions, to a time where she knew without a doubt she was doing something useful, had even begun to look forward to the king’s gentle rebukes when she went for too long without any sort of rest.

“We are never made for just one thing. We never see ourselves as others do.” Florentine had known, even before she had, where her heart would lead her, where she would find her peace. Terrastella was her home, through heartbreak and through tragedy, through celebration and love. The Champion steps forward to join the crowd as her wings fold along her sides, her steps pausing only briefly in surprise as Fiona’s ‘voice’ casts across her mind. “Yes, in their memory, and in the hopes that wherever they are, their paths will lead them to where they need to be.”

Whether or not it would lead them back would be a mystery -- Tempus only knew,  she supposed, and he wasn't about to share His plans with mere mortals. Or perhaps it was the strange gods of where they had come from, calling them home? They might never know. "I would be honored to remain Terrastella's Champion in these trying times." Her eyes catch Marisol's for just a brief moment, saying everything that she cannot say in front of the crowd -- I am here if you need me, I will go where you send me, I love you as Sovereign and Commander and nothing at all -- before she turns her gaze to the crowd, instead, and a commotion beginning to stir as a bedraggled buckskin lands amongst them.

credits

@Marisol @Fiona