Thinking, Writing (open)

[Adara Snow]

Adara sat beside the lake for the first time in weeks. Of course, for the first time in weeks, she wasn't worried about being cornered. She blushed as she thought about why that was, then turned her attention back to her open journal and the passage she was writing.

I will never again feel quite the same in an empty corridor...

[Emilian Sota]

Emilian hadn't been down to the lake in a while, the last time he had been anywhere on the grounds was when he had stupidly agreed to Lucretia's deal. He instantly recognized Adara's form on the shore, but didn't come up to her. He walked quietly to a tree near her and watched her writing in that little book she always had with her. Something kept him from going up to her instantly, but something also kept him from turning away and leaving without even giving her the chance of turning her head the small amount it would take for her to see him.

[Adara Snow]

The quill in Adara's hand moved slower and slower, finally stopping in its place, leaving a blot of ink on the page. She could feel him watching her, a sensation she might never have recognized a mere month ago. She flourished her quill, readying to write again, to pretend ignorance, but there was no use. She could feel him, and wise or not, she could not pretend.

Adara raised her head and scanned the horizon, finally spotting Emilian beneath a tree, watching her as she now watched him. There was one long, tense moment before she recovered herself and attempted to smile for him, a graceful curve of her lips that asked nothing in return.

[Emilian Sota]

Adara's smile was just enough to stop him from turning and leaving. Infatuated. Michael's voice entered Emilian's mind, but he shook his head slightly. Intrigued. Why she intrigued him, he still wasn't sure as he came over to her and sat beside her. "What are you writing?" he asked by way of greeting. He had barely glanced down at the paper before looking back out over the water.

[Adara Snow]

Adara gave a hastily-stifled gasp and lifted the book against her chest, as though simultaneously protecting her secret and the weakness of her body. She pressed her lips together for just a moment before answering, choosing her words carefully. "I am writing a story," she admitted. Adara gave silent thanks to Dru for the courage to begin accepting her own writing. Adara looked curiously at Emilian, wondering at his thoughts, but wary of asking.

[Emilian Sota]

Emilian looked at Adara from the corner of his eye, turning his head enough to get a clear view of her face. "About what?" He had let her in deeper than anyone he could remember during their last meeting and he wasn't really sure how to act. So he settled for something safe: her writing.

[Adara Snow]

Adara blushed heavily, shutting her book with as quiet a snap as she could manage to hide her most recent entry. "It is about a sheltered princess and a wounded warrior," she said simply. It was far more than that, but she knew that he would not want to hear more. He did not like being faced with himself, and the subject of her story was transparently him. Adara did not look away from Emilian, but waited breathlessly for his judgment, or perhaps to find that he did not associate himself with her story at all.

[Emilian Sota]

It made sense that she would be writing something like that. "Do they fall in love?" Emilian knew, in some part of his mind, that there was a parallel to him and her, but he pushed the idea out of his mind and tried to focus on the story. If the conversation stayed on her, she couldn't find out anything else about him.

[Adara Snow]

Adara did not show her surprise at Emilian's question beyond the slight tensing of her fingers at the edge of her book. "I do not know that yet," she admitted. "Certainly the princess hopes as much, but as she does not understand it herself, there is little she can do to change things." Adara found that it was much easier to talk about things through the mirror of her story, and it eased the discomfort she felt.

[Emilian Sota]

"How does she know that she's not already in love, if she does not understand it?" Emilian continued to ignore the part of his mind telling him that she was talking about herself, trying his hardest to speak about this princess as the purely fictional character she had to be. He sat cross-legged, resting his elbows on his knees and peeling apart blades of grass absentmindedly as he looked at her.

[Adara Snow]

Adara's lips curved, and her eyes glittered with some secret knowledge even she did not have the words to express. "She has read of love, in books of fairy tales, and it is a thing of such beauty and such heartache that she does not believe she is strong enough to survive it, and so she does not hope for it, but only dreams. Sometimes, of course, she wonders if she isn't falling in love with the warrior. It is when he is his coldest and most distant that she sees the most." If only real life were like that, she was sure that she would understand Emilian already. Adara sighed. "She will not suspect, will not guess. She will be certain, or she will not utter the word, even to the night." Adara glanced away, even the barrier of her story not enough to disguise the nakedness of her words.

[Emilian Sota]

Emilian watched her, though his eyes glazed over as he thought. Why would someone hope for love? It only ever ended in heartache. "What makes her care for the warrior? If he is so cold and distant, why doesn't she distance herself from him?" That made more sense than to risk being hurt by staying near him. He still watched her, waiting for her to look back at him and answer.

[Adara Snow]

Adara could not say the words without looking at Emilian, something in her eyes hoping that he would know that there was only so much she could attribute to the character that held her dreams captive. She measured her words carefully, but as she spoke, they flowed like the flowering script locked forever into the pages of her journal.

"She sees in him things that she has never seen before. He is her opposite in every way; he seems to fear nothing, he answers to nobody but himself. And yet, like her, he searches for something that he cannot see. He reminds her that she is alive, that there is a world outside the castle walls; he has seen it, touched and tasted it, and when she sees him, she sees a part of it."

[Emilian Sota]

Emilian tried to not let it show in his eyes that he was storing all the information away to be thought about and examined during the next long night. "So what does the warrior think about all of this? What does he think about her?" He wondered what her take on this warrior's feelings was.

[Adara Snow]

Adara's eyes dropped. "As the story stays with the princess, we can do nothing more than guess." She looked back up at Emilian with no thought of how easy it was to read emotion in her eyes. "The warrior believes he is incapable of any tender feelings. He was built for war, for destruction, and he has forgotten all else. He sees her as a stepping stone on his path to discovering whatever it is he searches for. He does not know why he is drawn to her." Adara shrugged lightly, as though she hadn't thought of this a hundred times. "Perhaps it is the light that surrounds her. Perhaps he only wants to warm himself at her hearth."