(paging @lucia-goe-junius)
Mor Dhona has turned into a bustling nest of activity. The Scions of the Seventh Dawn moving their headquarters there would have that effect. Saviours of Eorzea. Big damn heroes, and all the pathetic rabble that follows their sort. The hypocrisy of it all is staggering, but hey, at least the local economy thrives while the Scions prepare to fight the next battles in the conveniently endless war against the beastmen and their eikons.
A tall figure in a worn robe, vaguely feminine in shape, watches from the shadow of a nearby building. A lock of dirty blond hair spills out from under the hood drawn up to hide the face; a pale hand rises to tuck it back in, the movement jerky and frantic.
The mighty have fallen indeed.
The woman once called Livia sas Junius sneers, unseen by any but the host of ghosts lurking in her wake. Sometimes she believes she’s but a ghost herself, a theory disproven only by the suspicious looks and hostile snarls of the merchants when she strays too close to their stalls. Today, however, she’s nowhere near the markets; there are interesting guests in town and securing a scrap to eat loses its relevance in the intrigue of shining armours and haughty elezen faces.
Ishgardians. If there ever was a greater hypocrisy than these so-called Scions it must surely be the Holy See of Ishgard. What they are doing in Mor Dhona...
Her eyes are drawn to the leader of the small group of knights and at first she doesn’t even think to doubt her eyes. She sees them all every day in a dozen faces; the steady Rhitatyn in a passing Roegadyn warrior, Nero’s insolent sneer in a masked stranger, Gaius... Gaius’s face is there every time she closes her eyes, never accusing, always disappointed. So why should she find it strange at all that an Ishgardian commander seems to be wearing the face of her long lost sister?
But then she hears her voice.
It’s impossible-- surely Lucia must have been exposed as a spy and executed-- surely she must be dead, as dead as everything Livia has ever loved--
And yet. The face doesn’t change, the features don’t suddenly turn into those of an elezen. Somehow, somehow it must really be Lucia.
Livia watches her enter the building housing the Scions, and waits. In the shadows; always in the shadows, like the ghost she is. She wonders, briefly, who is haunting whom, here, in this chance encounter. Surely Lucia carries her own host of ghosts; Livia wonders if she numbers among them.
Finally Lucia emerges from the building again, and the Ishgardians start towards the road leading north to Coerthas. Livia moves through the crowd, almost unseen -- it’s wonderful how a dirty robe makes one all but invisible -- swiftly, placing herself on the path of the knights. She doesn’t need to fake the stumble -- a muttered apology -- and her hood falls back as she looks up at her sister, matted overgrown bangs cover her third eye safely enough.