Caerus (almost)

[Thalia]

The Guardian. The name burrowed carefully, but she did not know if she would remember it beyond this meeting. Irony plucked a grim smile to her lips. Her gaze fell, and disquiet heaved itself out from her lungs in a long sigh. Of Tristan’s certain declaration she was not so convinced, but sanity was not a measure of life she cared to use. Most of the time she accepted her own flaws and inconsistencies with the same ease she accepted them in others. Mara was Mara. “There are worse things in this world than a little madness,” she said. Her lips curled into an amused smile, but her tone was perfectly innocent. She slipped from the bed at the same time as her imagined vines squeezed the slats beneath the thin mattress, and the entire structure folded in on itself.

Tristan said he was many miles away. Nimeda knew not how to encourage her waking body to her bidding. The conundrum knotted in her mind, washed by gentler waves as she perceived Mara’s distress. Her bare feet padded closer, and she paused close enough to press a sisterly kiss against the other girl’s inky dark hair. “Your pets are as real as I am, but they have been a long time forgotten. Few people glimpse behind the veil of this world, let alone know the truth of it.” She poked playfully. “And they do bite.”

She shifted to appraise the wolf from the corner of her eye. Broken promises were forgiven, but scepticism flavoured the small tilt of her head. “You said you would help, if you could. Can you?”