#ormir 03

They could not have been gone for less than a month, and every part of Freydis wanted to find the most familiar face to her at camp immediately, but her forethought and sense of duty delayed her slightly. Once she felt Arros would receive proper care for the blight that had stricken her, Freydis rushed to make herself presentable. The journey had left her much changed, and she pondered this staring at herself in the small hand mirror examining the scar that crept down the side of her face, the red handprint--Hrimthur’s Heart–seared against her skin, as well as the clouds of bruises up and down each arm, some fresher than others. Each of these would be easy to cover up or explain away under the guise of a trophy from a prior battle. 

Suspicion concerning the smell of cinnamon and clove that wafted from her skin would be harder to explain away, and so, even though it pained her, she took the extra time to clean herself up. Perhaps, for more than one reason she felt relief after scrubbing at her skin and clearing the dried blood and grime from her face. She could barely believe the amount of ash and grime that discolored the water of the washing basin she had used to clean her hair. She lifted her arms, tired from the trials of battle, to carefully braid her hair, but thought better of it. It was best to leave it down, to obscure the dark cord of scar that extended from her temple to the high point of her cheek–the relic of an injury she had never actually sustained. Besides, it wasn’t worth the wasted seconds it would consume between that moment and finding Ormir.

If she were lucky, he would have already met with Aytaç and actually have time for her. Gaining access to the area of the camp where the royal family and their court would be resting wasn’t difficult–by now she was easily recognized as holding the favor of the princess and as a pupil of Ormir’s masterful strategy. She stalked the space between tents and peered into the dimly lit makeshift rooms with a hurried fervor that was unlike her; as if one of them might disappear again if she didn’t find him quickly enough.

Once she spotted him, mercifully on his own, all decorum escaped her. Freydis swallowed hard, biting the inside of her cheek to try and maintain any modicum of composure. There was so much to tell him, to ask him, to beg for his wisdom and opinion on,  but the second he was within an arms reach it all fell away and language in its entirety escaped her. She reached for him, embracing him and having to remind herself of her strength. Her head fell forward, buried in the fabric of the tunic he wore, and she let out one, singular noise that could only be described as something between a laugh and a sob. To her, to stand there connected to him held the gravity and comfort of lying between two familiar graves.