[P] could you tell me what stopped the rain

[Theodosia]

let our eyes show the 
fire in our hearts tonight

She had taken a few days to think over what her father had told her -- at first, helping him roll out the cookie dough on a kitchen counter, and later in the barracks, in her empty room, staring at the door and aching inside with her insecurities and her uncertainties waging war.

She doesn’t know when the decision is fully made -- perhaps it never truly is, perhaps it is simply an impulse born of the lack of sleep and a lack of bravery. She does not have the answers she needs, the answers she desires; she cannot form the questions in a way that doesn’t sound accusatory, or petulant.

She needs more information, and it is this drive that sends her away from Terrastella once more, this time towards the golden sands of Solterra. She does not wear her armor, nor does she don her warpaint -- she goes not as a soldier, not as Terrastella’s warden, but as herself with only a soft fur collar and a veil of silk draped over her back to protect her skin from the scorching sun.

(Perhaps she wants him to see that she is as beautiful as she can be deadly, to witness the way the static crackles over her skin every time the silk brushes her hip, to know that there is a storm within her far greater than the ocean in him.)

When she lands upon the steps of Solterra’s castles, she can’t help but note with approval how alert the guards are, how they have obviously been tracking her approach -- spears lowered but ready, the two nearest with eyes on her and the rest with their eyes on the streets or the horizon but ears turned towards her.

A point in Oreste’s favor, then, or perhaps whoever he had appointed his warden.

“An audience with your king, please.”

credits

@Orestes