This was so boring.
So, so boring.
Einin didn't know why she had to come with her parents on this trip. Well, actually, that was a lie; she knew exactly why. Ever since that whole...kidnapping business...they had hardly let her out of their sight. They worried about her, and fussed over her, and she got it but she also hated it. She didn't want to be fussed over. She didn't want to be looked at like...like that. Like a girl that had gone through a trauma. She had. She still had nightmares she woke screaming from. But she didn't like the pity, or the worry, or how careful everyone was around her now. Somehow, it made it all worse].
She just wanted to forget. Forget everything. And forget everything that came right after, the pain of Rufus's confession, the stupid, sickening mistakes she'd made when she'd been trying to prove to herself that she was better.
Just forget it all. Was that so much to ask?
She had poured all her energy into training when she could get away with it, and that helped a little. It was a distraction, and she needed as many of those as she could get. She had been hoping that with her parents gone on this business trip, that she would have time to herself, but...then they'd decided they couldn't bear to leave her.
So here she was, at the Ashspire residence in Darken Vei, sitting at the dinner table listening to her parents discuss politics and other boring (but admittedly important) nonsense with them. Her pink hair was plated and pinned, her bodice was tight enough that she couldn't slouch and breathe, and all in all, she just wanted to be anywhere but here right now.
Sighing, she pushed her food around on her plate idly. There was roast boar, and she refused to touch it; couldn't stand pork after...uh...everything that had happened. She'd eaten most everything else, though her appetite was less than it used to be.
Her mother noticed her poking at the meat and cleared her throat, whispering under her breath. "Einin."
"What?"
"Manners."
"I wasn't doing anyth--" Oh. She hadn't even noticed she was doing it.
Pushing her plate away, she sat back in her seat with another sigh and looked across the table. The Ashspire girl was there, too, a girl who looked around her age and had been introduced as Raisa. She was beautiful, too--a real lady, a girl who looked and seemed born and bred for this life. She hadn't tried to make much conversation with her; noble women always wanted to talk about things she wasn't interested in and though she could act, she had lately felt too drained to try. But maybe it would at least be better than this.
"I think I need to powder my nose," she said at last, rising from her seat and tugging uncomfortably at her bodice where the boning dug into her sides. Her mother shot her a look, eyebrow raised. She knew she was full of it. "Raisa, dear, would you like to join me?"