Herostratus was a fine warrior. Such a fine warrior that instead of perhaps trying to protect Rho from the new stranger, he simply set the pair of golden eyes on the different coloured strelf and leaned forward to give a thankful lick to the pointed finger.

He'd remember it. Hero was in there. He would remember everything. But acting like a totally normal human was a bit beyond him at the moment and once the door was closed and he was surrounded by familiar and unfamiliar smells he went from protective wolf to faithful companion puppy. Safe! Hero's fluffy tail gave a tick-toc and he pressed his face to Rhos leg before taking the hand not in his fur gently into his mouth, giving a muffled half bark noise.

He turned his head to find Rhos room and gave another ruff. Though, maybe they wanted to talk? Hero moved himself, instinctively more than comfort, to sit at Rhos feet, carefully positioned between his favorite person ever and the new elf. A tilt of his head, and he dropped Rhos hand for a casual loll of his tongue so he could also show off all his sharp teeth.

Things were complicated.

The situation was uniquely complicated. Rational thought won over the pit of betrayal she'd initially felt. He hadn't known it was her. Hadn't tracked her down maliciously, the proof was how quickly he'd changed sides, how quickly he went from being her pursuer to her protector. Clearly had hadn't done it for money, which meant he felt guilty about having had done the persuing that lead to an injury.

Raizel lay awake for a time, head on the soap smelling pillow. At war in her own head how she should feel. Cadmus was feeling guilty, voiced again about making up for the injury. Raizel turned her face into the pillow before turning around to face Cadmus, making sure to keep his arm on her waist, simply because the weight of it there was comforting. The sun had risen and despite the curtains being closed, dim light filtered in on them. "I'll let you know if I think of anything, or you can let me know if you have any great ideas." Raizel placed a hand on his arm and gave it a gentle squeeze and then gave a little wobbly smile that lasted for only a moment.

She turned around again, having not noticed he was on his wounded side. "We should get some sleep," and after tucking her back to be pressed tight to his chest and unconsciously taking his hand and holding it to her chest like one would hold a stuffed animal... Raizel was out like a light. Her entire being relaxed, breathing evened out, the only thing at odds with her sleeping form was how hard her grip on his hand tightened against her chest and the wild movement of her eyes under their lids.

HI GOLDIE IT'S NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN.

I'm so excited.

"Ah," Luna started to say, surprised when her hand was tugged back and her palm explored. Had she missed some feature that she had but he didn't? Luna looked at her hand and flexed her fingers, head tilted curiously before Zhirai took his turn examining the things he had but she was missing.

"Yes," Luna tucked whatever loose hair behind her rounded ear after he touched it and smiled, "I am quite plainly human." she spoke with the assumption Zhirai understood her and with his hand in hers, she led him back to the castle, fully intending to drop him off with his own. "Can you hear better with them being all pointy?" She asked, pointing to his ears and then her own.

Medina took the backhand with as much grace as someone could. Her head whipped to the side and her curtain of long dark hair followed. Still she remained, pondering a sharp moment of wishing that her nails were daggers and she could reach up under his ribcage and pull out his heart. 

Still, when she wiped the blood from her mouth and tongued the inside of her cheek where her teeth and ripped flesh she sighed and spat blood on the ground. Mouth wounds healed quickly and if she didn't irritate it, it would be gone in a week. Medina wiped at her eyes before she sighed and rubbed at her neck, sore from being held down.

What a terrible day. What a terrible place.

Medina looked up at the sky for a few moments, pondering on the difficulty of running away. The sound of footsteps caught her attention and she bit back a snarl, he'd just left!

"What do you want now?" She barked, teeth stained red before she turned around to face a being that wasn't Zannrick. "You've come to chastise me, too?" she snapped at the person that she could only assume was a servant, though they were headed to her very quickly.

Medina winced when the sword was slammed down, eyes squeezed tight but when she didn't feel herself die she opened them back up. His words rushed into her ears like waves and she looked up at Zannrick from her place on the ground.

"I don't want to be here, damn you!" She yelled at him, "I was taken from my home. my child ripped from me to be raised by nurses and nannies. You're too much of a coward to kill me, is what this is." She hissed, lifting herself up and looking up at him, sneering before she pulled herself to her full height, "I've never sought you out except to befriend you and you've slapped it away again and again, I've never been unkind to you and you've always met it with viciousness and venom. You're sense of self is so fucking fragile just taking a moment to be more than a dog that barks when your master says to shatters you to dust." Medina lifted her chin, expression grim.

"I have nothing left to lose, Zannrick, your screaming is accomplishing little. Maybe you should go to bed and sleep off your booze like a good little puppy."

It was no use.

Medina's head hit the ground and she gave a soft exhale of pain, squeezing her eyes shut but they popped open when there was pressure and a sword filled her vision. Zannrick was a mordecai and that meant she had no powers to call upon. Nothing to keep her from being beheaded if he saw fit.

"I didn't want to," she whispered, voice strained, "I don't want any of this, but you never believe me." It was then, under the edge of a sword and on the ground, she didn't cry because of her situation, but the tears began to flow for her lost sense of self. Her lost dream of a future. Her lost life.

"I just wanted to be loved and be happy, and he doesn't love me and no one wants me, I have no purpose, my sister is probably dead, my own son has no need of me," Medina moved her head, eyes red making the bright gold near glow. "So do it," she gave a little wet hiccup, and her eyebrows furrowed into a frown from her place on the ground, "Just end it, Zannrick. Stain the gardens red with my blood and then dump my body in a canal. No one will care and you know it."

Medina winced, glaring into his drunken gaze before she turned her face away.

"And?" She roared back, tugging at her wrist, thought it was like trying to move her hand from out of a wall. "What exactly are you looking to achieve by yelling at me like you're an angry child, Zannrick." Medina gave her hand another useless tug, "Intimitation?"

"Let me go! I've done nothing to you, so let me leave! Have your drunken temper tantrum here and I'll go somewhere else!" Another tug to get away from him before she glared at him, their inch difference in height making it easy to level her gaze on his own.

Medina gasped loudly and jerked away when she heard someone. Tears kept trailing down her cheeks and she did try to stifle them when Zannrick interrupted her solitude.

"You!" She shouted back, hands moving to wipe her face, "you're always in the shadows, stalking like some kind of rat!" Medina pulled away from him, golden eyes bright with humiliation and anger.

"Go away, Zannrick, you're drunk and I don't have the patience to deal with you and your temper tantrum right now," Medina snarled, letting herself be angry instead of suppressing it. Then she moved away from his accusatory finger and moved to go past him.

Medina gave Calents cheek another pat, her chest and head a swirl of emotions. Hurt that he didn't love her, a tightness in her chest that wasn't going to go away anytime soon, she knew.

Giving him another quick gentle kiss, Medina turned around and started to walk away to return to her rooms. To cry into her pillow. To scream into bathwater. At least that was the plan, Medina walked past the area she remembered Zannrick being last and contemplated checking on him.

Instead she continued to walk, her footsteps quiet and soft while she made her way outside. Tracing her fingers along branches and leaves, taking a few moments to admire the flowers. Once Medina had tucked herself in a corner of the garden, she lowered her head and cried.

A tilt of her head and a sad smile before Medina moved to give Calent a chaste sweet kiss on the lips. "You may believe that but  we can agree to disagree," moving away then, she sighed and looked down.

"I'll give you my final answer tomorrow, we can both give it more thought." She chewed on her lower lip in thought, "is that okay?"

While her own eyes weren't clouded and she was close enough to see Zhirai clearly and she smiled softly, eyes tracing along the scar on his cheek and over his lips before looking down at their skin.

"Snow," she repeated, "Like me?" Luna smiled and tilted her head, looking up at her newest friend. Finding him not violently pulling his hand back as permission, she took his hand in hers and traced her fingers over the back of it, marveling slightly in how the same but different it was. "We don't seem so different aside from the undertones," She said oddly pleased.  While no one treatedly her badly for her strange colouring, it did ostracize her. The superstitious ones full on would pretend she didn't exist.

"We should get you back to your kin," She finally said, dropping Zhirai's hand, "you can come visit any time, if you like." Luna nodded towards the castle and extended her arm for him to take her elbow, "I can escort you back, if you like."

A soft sigh and Raizel sat back up to peer at Cadmus' head from his seat on the ground. She rolled his offer around in her head, to come along with her. "Like a team?" She questioned, her voice soft. Raizel had never been part of a team before, choosing to simply work alone.

She looked at the bandaged wound on her arm and flexed her fingers. Thought of the gash on her companions back. The ankle that was caused by him. Raizel shimmied to the edge of the bed and placed her hands on his shoulders, giving them a light squeeze and moving her head down so her mouth was beside his ear.

"You do owe me," she whispered, "my ankle is quite fucked up." Raizel backed away but kept her arms on his shoulders, "get on the bed Cadmus, you're only a cat sometimes. I need you well rested if you're going to be watching my back and divulging secrets." Raizel moved back, tucking some black hair behind her pointed ear and stifling a yawn before moving all the blankets down and in one fluid motion, removing her shirt. The fabric went sailing where it hit the close wall with a dull noise and onto a pile on the floor.

Could she be content with that?

Medina thought of her son. He'd likely get an education. But what if the worst happened? Her own head and his would be on the chopping block. She took a step closer and held their hands to her chest, pressing the back of Calents hand to her chest so he could maybe feel her heart beating.

"Perhaps you don't know then," she whispered mostly to herself, Medina was slowly resigning herself, "I understand. This is strictly business for you," She moved closer, minimizing the space between them, she'd grown so fond of Calent over the time she'd been here and it stung to realize it was all one-sided. Hurt to realize it was just a well crafted lie.

"Can I kiss you?" Medina whispered, looking up at him, "You may feel little much for me but... I am very fond of you."

Medina tilted her head, giving it a little shake as if confused.

"You'd be wed to a woman you don't love? You are more than a title and duty," she said, her voice soft, "You deserve happiness, too. You know that, don't you?"

It was all wrong.

Medina unlaced her fingers and took Calents hands in hers, as if to reassure him. She sensed his hesitation. It wasn't a lie he spoke, but it was a non-answer. How much did a man trust his wife?

Her own parents had loved and trusted one another, but they had married for love instead of titles and wealth. It had been all she had wanted before that had been snatched away from her.

"Maybe we can make a deal," She caressed his fingers with her thumb and pressed a gentle kiss to his knuckles, "All your answers have been awful and not at all what I've been wanting or looking for in a husband. I want him to trust and love me and while I've grown very fond of you..." Medina shook her head and pulled a tight face, "But I don't want to be in a loveless marriage. That's my only thing I have as a commoner that nobility doesn't get the chance for, right? A partner I can love? Can we..." It pained her to say this, "make a timeline? A few years? I've already been held captive here, my life on hold." Medina looked down at their hands, "If you can't love me, I don't want to be married to you beyond what purpose I can provide and once this War is resolved there would be no more purpose."

It was then she thought of Hope. Already he was growing up in the confines of the palace, wet nurses and maids. Everything he could have ever wanted or wished for was his. While he wasn't officially the Grand Duke's son, he was a special child and she pressed her hands to her abdomen again before turning to the side to look across the room, golden eyes taking in the splendor.

She'd been in here many times.

"I do," she said, if she didn't... Who else was there? Maybe Medina could be a positive influence. "I'm already here. I'm intelligent. I'm well read. I'm not a noble viper like some of the women here, but I suppose I could learn that trait as they do. I'd rather it be me at your side than... Someone with machinations. You know me, my deepest secrets." Medina paused and laced her fingers together and held them down in front of her while she thought of what else to say.

"Hopefully, even if you can't love me, you can trust me." Medina made a face then, like she was slightly pained, "Please tell me you can at least trust me and that I can trust you, Calent."

Does it matter.

Medina looked away immediately, sucked in a breath and let her head turn down a little bit. His words were wind in the trees to her ears and she felt like her insides had ceased to exist, she felt so empty. It wasn't a surprise though, and she didn't know why she had expected anything otherwise. Calent wasn't exactly emotionally available. Medina was convenient.  She was everything he needed to look like he was changed. Like he'd learned from the war. A mage. Not fully Connlaothian. A commoner.

Medina removed her hands and let them fall to her sides, willing herself to remain stoic, even though she could feel her pulse in her throat. "I... See." She looked up again, a small smile not reaching her eyes when she tried to meet his gaze, "Very well then. I will do my duty as a citizen of Connlaoth. I understand my place in this."

Medina pressed her hand over her abdomen when he mentioned that she was the mother of his child. His son. The son no one knew was his - though she could only assume some suspected. While he spoke, she looked down at her hands, her magic stifled by the proximity of the mordecai on the grounds.

With hesitation she reached out and took Calents hand, holding his fingers and moving to stand closer. The words were stuck in her throat when she opened her mouth and Medina moved closer, pressing her hand to Calents cheek and brushed her thumb under his eye. The politics were above her head - Medina was an educated woman but... In medicine. Of course her opinions of the war were important but all she wanted, all she had ever wanted, was to live in peace. To wake up not afraid to exist.

"Do you love me?" She finally whispered, afraid for the answer.

It would be so easy to just curl her fingers and dig her nails into his eyes.

So easy.

Sunniva listened to the instructions Krah gave her about making sure the place didn't catch on fire while he was gone. The sound of him outside was oddly loud the sound of dust, dirt and debris falling down the chimney into the smokey room distracted her but it didn't feel like it was getting any hotter than it should be. Which hopefully meant the fire hadn't spread outside it's home.

"Thank you," she said curtly, head down while she contemplated on what exactly to do now.

"If you clear a space on the ground for us I can set out a place to sleep," she spoke after getting up and drawing her fingers over the walls, taking careful steps to familiarize herself with the room. "Or I can do that, since you cleared the chimney and cleared a path, you can rest, if you like."