Her expression remains clearly dubious, but August isn’t too bothered; it seems like cynicism is her baseline state of being. But she drinks happily enough, and that’s something.
August has an ear turned toward her, listening, but his eyes scan the crowd streaming past the door of the bar, and those inside. He doesn’t realize it, but he’s looking for familiar faces. He doesn’t see any, which keeps him from making the decision to turn away from them before they recognize him in turn.
It’s an inevitability that he’ll meet someone he knows like this, bruise-cheeked and scabby, but he isn’t quite ready to tell the story of why. But when she mentions the queens he turns back to Morrighan. He’s heard as much, while in Solterra; but it still surprises him, that Isra would have left so soon. For war, they’d said, in her home country - he wonders why Morrighan is so vague, and whether it’s intentional. Something about her tone suggests it is.
“May her winds be favorable,” he says, and tips his glass in a faint toast before drinking again. He’s glad he did when the Regent catches his eye, and it seems to him there are still sparks burning in her own. “No,” he says, though in truth there were many patrons of the Scarab that hadn’t been opposed to Raum - even through their horror at the end. But delving back into those questions would require a lot of reckoning with his disappearance, and anyway it hardly seemed to matter, now.
“I didn’t hear so much as a whisper of his name while I was in Solterra, though. Their new king seems to be adequately keeping the peace.” August felt a grudging respect for Orestes, though he could do without the memory of his lion’s judgmental stare. Now he looks at Morr, pouring a little more concern into his voice. “Why, has there been any more trouble?”
@Morrighan
August has an ear turned toward her, listening, but his eyes scan the crowd streaming past the door of the bar, and those inside. He doesn’t realize it, but he’s looking for familiar faces. He doesn’t see any, which keeps him from making the decision to turn away from them before they recognize him in turn.
It’s an inevitability that he’ll meet someone he knows like this, bruise-cheeked and scabby, but he isn’t quite ready to tell the story of why. But when she mentions the queens he turns back to Morrighan. He’s heard as much, while in Solterra; but it still surprises him, that Isra would have left so soon. For war, they’d said, in her home country - he wonders why Morrighan is so vague, and whether it’s intentional. Something about her tone suggests it is.
“May her winds be favorable,” he says, and tips his glass in a faint toast before drinking again. He’s glad he did when the Regent catches his eye, and it seems to him there are still sparks burning in her own. “No,” he says, though in truth there were many patrons of the Scarab that hadn’t been opposed to Raum - even through their horror at the end. But delving back into those questions would require a lot of reckoning with his disappearance, and anyway it hardly seemed to matter, now.
“I didn’t hear so much as a whisper of his name while I was in Solterra, though. Their new king seems to be adequately keeping the peace.” August felt a grudging respect for Orestes, though he could do without the memory of his lion’s judgmental stare. Now he looks at Morr, pouring a little more concern into his voice. “Why, has there been any more trouble?”
@Morrighan
August - -
there's a lover in the story
but the story's still the same
but the story's still the same
