She meets eyes with the one who calls himself Arbert. The Warriors of Darkness work in perfect harmony, tearing apart their newly reformed Scion group with frightening ease. And then she sees those same eyes in a quiet tavern in Featherfall. Blue as heavenly skies, sad as the rain outside. They meet across the bar table in the drowsy, damp quiet, other patrons bent over drinks sweating in the sudden humidity before the inevitable temperature drop. Her usual instinct to reach for her weapon is instead replaced by a levin-shock of recognition — not of an enemy, but of someone who is looking for silence amid so much noise. He nods at her. She nods back. He frowns; his face does not seem predisposed to such an expression, like he must work at it, but grooves have formed all the same. She rises from her seat, slips gil upon the sticky table, and steps outside. If he doesn't follow, that is for the best. She's testing something — mostly herself. The failures grow and grow. She has a preoccupation with sticking her hand in the flame just to prove it won't burn her this time, even though her hands are red with the proof. She watches rain drip from the old wood eaves. He steps outside. "Where are your companions?" she asks, not looking at him. "Where are yours?" he replies.

The gift of her father is that she can sense movement like breezes. The way Arbert moves even without his armor is like a stone thrown through the air, blocky and heavy. It moves aside because it has no other choice. Does she move like that? When she finally looks at him, he's staring at her — something calculating, then desolate, in his face. His skin is scruffy with dirt and facial hair. His eyes are painful to look at, a sharp blue the likes of which she's never seen before. All he is wearing is a stained tunic and breeches with laced boots like any common laborer, and the sight makes her gut warm dangerously. "I am tired," is all she says in answer. "Aye." He agrees. A beat passes. "Are you?" She squints at him. He squints at her. Something scorching lingers about his bearing, like her answer has reminded him about his anger. "You have the whole world to look upon," he says, dark. She tilts her head. Twilit hair falls down her shoulders. "And you do not?" "This place isn't mine." He watches her hair move. "It will never be mine. I don't want it." It sounds like a mantra. The beat is familiar to her. The hateful words of her Mother ring strangely true in this moment. Fight me if you, like, child. Some things are gone, nonetheless. "Why not? According to whom?" "You're very proper, aren't you." She reels from the reflexive tease. "Whom." His smirk is nearly a sneer. "Who talks like that?"

She stares at him, unexpectedly hurt by this, for some reason. "It is how I was taught." His voice croaks, half-amusement, half-ache. "By an old wizard or something?" "E-Sumi-Yan is over two centuries old, yes." He searches her face. He looks away, as if accidentally slashed by what he went digging for. "It's not mine because that isn't what fate has in store for me." He seethes, burns, glimmers against the darkening sky. He's tall. Broad. Captivating as a sole mountain covered by snow on the horizon. "Or was I wrong in thinking you don't understand that? Should I go?" Her shoulders slacken. She stares out at the rain pooling in ugly mud puddles across the dirt path. "Do we know each other from somewhere?" Arbert purses his lips. "I don't know." What a strange answer. It should just be no. "I stole a…friend," she hedges, unsure what to call Estinien now for she knows the taste of his lips, "from the jaws of fate recently. I was waiting to be punished for it. And here you are." This, more than anything, makes Arbert startle. She can feel the way he tenses, then relaxes, and then is confused by that in the same moment, like he has an inexplicable ache in a muscle he didn't use. "Here I am," he echoes, miserable. She turns to watch him. She pulls her arms around herself, nails digging into goosepimpling flesh. It's getting colder by the moment. "If I'm wrong," he says, quiet, "I've doomed the only people who still love me."

getting back in the saddle bit by bit. some #wolardbert, set in 3.4.

#emberwrites ; #eiraverse