UNSOLICITED ASKS↳ @sunrunnerrs

          Airlia sits as ifto smother upon the scene some sort of equanimity, hands neatly folded on thetabletop, her curls brushed into an orderliness they had not embodiedbefore, caught up as they had been in —— no, stoppicturing it, stop picturing it —— her voice measured as if she had not just been —— NO! —— her pale skin flushed in whatValeera perceives as mortification in comparison to the —— STOP!

          Valeera does notsit. She paces the room as if agitated movement might force the accursed imagesfrom her mind ( endeavor she is obviously not achieving ),wondering as the priestess presses her for questions as if she is little morethan an ignorant whelp why she still remains in the chapel at all.She should have left, can still leave now… It would save both of them theembarrassment, though it is her own suffering the rogue most wishes to dodge —— Airlia can stew in her self-inflicted humiliation as retribution for not closing the window, as far as she’s concerned. 

          She has heard about these talks, the ones that mothers had with daughters andfathers had with sons, discussed in the abashed whispers of adults as if the trauma stillhounded them. Her own mother is gone, and if there is any guilty gladness tofind in that, it is that Valeera was able to avoid this.

          She doesn’t need the talk, anyway. She might be young for an elf, an affliction she will admit to few, but she’s seen things ( violent things somehow less disturbing than what she had just stumbled upon ), heard things  ( jeers that made it sound as gratifying as a good brawl ), read things ( things that made it sound ludicrously profound )… She can put the pieces together herself —— has to, for any questions she has that might make sense of the things she has seen and heard and read are too humiliating to even put into words.