[AW] this is a call to action

[Theodosia]

i will still rise

She hears his cries for help when she is sparring, and in less than a minute she has dropped her training spear and taken flight in a flurry of pale feathers. At first, she doesn’t realize it’s Ard calling  -- she’s barely heard him talk before, much less screaming at the top of his lungs, and it is her first clue that something is wrong. It sends a jolt of unfettered fear down her spine as she circles down to land next to their not-so-mute messenger, sparks beginning to fly from the tips of her wings.

The second clue is that Ard is there, alone, and she has never seen him without his brother. Certainly, she’s seen Erd out without his brother, but never the opposite.

Never.

“Ard -- Ard, where’s Erd?” She can’t help the raw panic scraping at her throat, her eyes darting from the messenger to the empty space at his side where his brother should have been, and she knows the answer even before the question leaves her lips, knows it from the panic in Ard’s eyes and the heaving of his chest.

“Where was the last place you saw him, Ard?”

And she would join Ard in his war-march, if it meant getting Erd back from whatever had taken him -- for she knows that Erd would never leave his brother behind willingly.

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