homeward bound

Adaria's trail was a spiderweb. If the Princess's eyes hadn't stood out so much to the strangers she passed, Nell would have taken a lot longer to get to Val Roy. Frazzled by missed turns and questioning absolute strangers for nearly a month, Penelope was deep into her worries when her coin purse only held the small, worthless old screws, nails, and bottle caps she collected. 

Glumly, she thumbed them, sinking down against the wall of the alleyway in the mazelike, vast city so different from the cloistered palace. Had she lost the trail at last? Small Eluvian portals in little villages always had some bumbling nosy elder watching for queer events, but this city was so saturated with them that 'a girl with blue eyes that went through your soul' earned her only shrugs.

She rubbed her dirty face, feeling the panic sink in of where she might sleep tonight. For the hundredth time, she asked herself why she took this leap. She didn't know what she was doing, each leg of the journey something she had to fuddle over and figure out. 

She put away her little purse, curling with her arms over her knees when she heard the melody. It was far off, but familiar - An old Antivan lullaby. They used to play it together. She lifted her head, shock in her eyes. She shakily got up and followed it...

Please be Addy, she whispered to herself as she found the door to the residence. With uncertainty and a swallow, she rung the bell.

One had to weave webs and dead ends to keep spies off her tail, but that had been before plunging a dagger between her mothers ribs.

It had been odd, the sensation and experience not entirely different, but enough that Adaria had miscalculated her escape. The ritual used had drained and injured her mana pool to the extent she’d only just made it to Amaranthian, falling, completely exhausted into one ‘Baron Arlange’s’ bed. His lecture had droned on so much that she swore she had fallen unconscious a few hours to only wake at him still talking. She had inconvenienced him though, and he, due to her current state, was denied restitution. It was only natural he was upset about it.

Now she had made it back to Orlais, but mercifully, her aunt Mica had refrained from any lecturing on Adaria’s disappearance. To be told of her own deed, by her Father’s sister no less, was cathartic. Sickly amusing, but she was too weak to offer much than a half-smile, before fainting.

A month on she was still easily exhausted, and while she minded her physical exertions, her magic had almost completely regenerated. There were only so many days one could spend indoors however, and bored, Adaria convinced a servant to take her out into one of the many manicured gardens in Val Royeaux. Busking was frowned upon, but with a flick of her pinkie and a distracting thought planted, the attendants left her to play.

One could think the lullaby was in memory of her mother, but they would be surprised to find that belief untrue. It was a new focus of hers, dabbling and experimenting with the frequencies of music and their application to magic. Perched on a wall, her fingers gently played while her mind wandered, opened to the myriad of minds passing her by, until she felt a familiar presence brim into life at the edges of her senses. Nell.

The princess scoffed quietly, leaving the other woman to find her, [color=#9a00b2]“Took you long enough. I wonder where you’ve been all this time, Mm?”  [/color]

But it wasn't Addy.

No, a masked man opened the door, a scoff seasoning his voice as he replied to her lengthy and hurried question.

There is no girl here of that name. Go away, he said, the door punctuating his last word.

Penelope crept back to the road, and hung by the gate. She had to go somewhere next, but she did not know where. Finally, she trailed the general flow of other walkers about the street and she hoped that she might blend in for a bit while she thought of her predicament. Then, she heard the lullaby again.

By now, Penelope thought it must be a fashionable song. Antiva was not too distant from Orlais, and Orlais seemed to gobble up whatever art it could, twisting it with trifle and fancy. But Penelope had not recovered her strategy yet, and so, she trailed the music with dutiful steps that lacked hope. She followed the song into a beautiful garden, and to her surprise, she looked up upon a wall to see her old friend - different, older maybe? Or swallowed by city like all the foreign songs, dances, and art covered in its ornate bile.

Addy? She breathed. She took two slow steps, her mind making sure before she broke from the crowd. Then, she ran, or more so, scrambled madly, towards her friend. She must have looked a peasent - clothes threadbare and shoes limp - only the elegance of a single thick braid so neatly plaited, with wisps of hair that frayed around her face like an ancient lace doily. She hopped up onto the wall and threw herself onto her friend with the eagerness of a long lost pet. Finally, a shelter that meant more than the soulless shade of a tree or a bench in a foreign town. Her beautiful friend, who's beauty lied not in her colorful eyes or her fashionable figure.

Addy, Maker, I've been looking everywhere. I don't know what's going on, Penelope drew back to inspect her old friend, supressing a wild laughter that broke out of her. Her face cracked with a smile like dried mud cracking in the heat of the sun. The warmth of her love filled her face. She gave up strangling it down as it as it shook out her with a few tears. 

"I followed the trail you left me. Sometimes I lost it- Are you safe here?" She looked around suddenly, smoothing the cracks of herself, hands dirty, like a new and uncertain potter might spin the wet clay.

The melody and tempo changed, switching from the sad lullaby to a more hopeful tune, reflecting her shift to looking ahead than behind. It was one her father had composed for her and her fingers glided down the neck and drew the bow across it. At the edge of her mind she could feel Pen draw closer, but refrained from reaching out to touch her mind for closing her eyes and remembering her father. How he had danced with her to this song on the last name day the family had been together, before they had gone into hiding.

Addy stiffened sharply when Penelope embraced her. The bow in her hand slipped in between her fingers and together the unclasped the grip around her and pushed her away. Much like Francesco, being touched, embraced into a hug unwarranted felt incredibly uncomfortable. Adaria was not a hugger, if she initiated one it was usually in the throes of enjoying a tavern, dancing, singing and drinking. As always, she was standoffish, blunt in her responses to her friend.

[color=#9a00b2]“You took your time,”[/color] eyes opening to focus on the instrument in her hand rather than her friend. [color=#9a00b2]“You’ve missed a lo-”[/color] her mouth froze when finally setting eyes on Pen, gaze sharpening while her lips scowled in disapproval. [color=#9a00b2]“Why are you dressed like you’ve been playing peasant?” [/color]

The light in her eyes brimmed with magic for a moment, gaze shifting with a blink to find the servant who had been with her. As they reappeared from a short distance away, the Princess’s frown deepening. [color=#9a00b2]“Go fetch Pen a change of clothes,”[/color] then flickering her appraising eye over her companion added, [color=#9a00b2]“Meet us at the La Garre, we’ll be taking lunch there.”[/color] The servant dipped their head, offering to return her fathers violin also, to which Adaria nodded. [color=#9a00b2]“Place it in my study and lock the door,”[/color] before packing it away and handing it over. 

She waited until the man was out of earshot before shifting her body around to study Penelope.

[color=#9a00b2]“You look like shit, mercifully you don't smell it.” [/color]

Penelope hugged herself tensely as her friend pulled away, giving her a look that made her tentatively smell her sleeve. Her face reddened beneath the dirt. Her knuckles coldly held herself, as she seemed terrified of what she ought to be doing with them. Scrubbing them clean? Polishing them and painting them? Using them to serve drinks to her parched charge, or take her violin back to her study in the stead of her servant - Penelope opened her mouth to offer only to realize it was silly when she didn't know where to bring to it. She gaped and stared uselessly.

She took a deep breath to calm herself.

Addy, I know, I look wretched. Then she lowered her voice. The Antivan have lost their minds. What is going on? Please, tell me you know something, that this is all just some temporary Crow scheme? She took a tentative step closer, like a deer to water when it's not sure if it should bolt.

[color=#9a00b2]“I looked worse a few weeks ago,”[/color] Adaria admitted, once the servant was gone and the two left relatively alone. [color=#9a00b2]“Had to inconvenience a Baron briefly, but he was more than accommodating.”[/color] A private smile ghosted across her face when Arlange came to mind. A pleasant momentary distraction, again, though she doubted the two would see each other, not with his choice to raise Griffons. A wrinkle spanned her brow when her attention swept back to Pen, though it soon unfurled with her limited knowledge, unsurprising given how she looked, but, [color=#9a00b2]“where have you been, exactly? I thought my mother had sent you on a wild goose chase?”[/color] Herself, being the goose needing to be chased. 

[color=#9a00b2]“We haven’t lost our minds,”[/color] shaking her head and reaching to gently squeeze her arm, [color=#9a00b2]“merely passion and greed has clouded the judgement of some powerful Talons. They will be dealt with soon enough,”[/color] the small, knowing smile curled briefly but it paled with the news she had to offer Pen. [color=#9a00b2]“Both my parents are dead. The creature that killed them has gone silent, though there was a disturbance near Treviso, no word of note yet. Enzo is now King. Alonso is… Alonso and I have the joy of being made a broodmare in a few months.” [/color]The manic smile across her face was anything but sincere. [color=#9a00b2]“I’m certain to cause a ruckus if my darling brother is indeed preparing for my marriage, ready to announce on my Nameday no less.”[/color] Her eyes rolled indignantly.

[color=#9a00b2]“Trust me. When I tell you Pen. I will not allow this to happen. Enzo can’t do this to me. He won’t.” [/color]