[center][color=f0a446][h3][b]Siadamkiru Beneni[/b][/h3] [sub]Wife of Sorrin Lucielle [@WeepingLiberty], Accomplice of Valence Sayal [@WilsonTurner][/sub][/color][/center] Sia paused to consider the Gemminite man’s statement. [color=f0a446]“Tomorrow, then, three miles north of where the great road divides. The vast majority of the warlords here come from the south and west. My party and yours will be alone along the road. And it should not be taken as suspicious, not when I, as a female and one of the less-qualified lords here, choose to march homewards with another of the lesser-qualified lords here. Lest some older, more prestigious Drakken decide to overpower my small force and take my bride. I did not bring my army to the keep as Zaerna Thorot’oll, the last woman to take a bride, did; I fear that the others might see me as an easy target.”[/color] The woman noticed that everyone was making their way to the banquet hall. She looped her arm more tightly around Sorrin’s shoulders and guided the girl towards the hall. [color=f0a446]“Sorrin, what do you think of the man we just met?”[/color] Sia had a pretty good idea of it herself, but she wanted to see where her new bride’s head was. Sia took a seat a ways from the dais, near the center of the room, not wanting to attract undue attention. She passed an empty plate to Sorrin and started pointing out all of the dishes lined out on the table. [color=f0a446]“I can assure you that all of this is absolutely delightful, but do stay away from anything with that minty green color if you don’t like spicy foods. It fools a lot of girls, but that’s a very spicy herb. Almost like cinnamon, if cinnamon was a lot spicier.”[/color] The drakken woman herself did not eat much, despite being rather hungry. She never really liked to eat much at these functions. Mostly, she watched her bride eat. That poor girl, taken away from her home… the least Sia could do was make her house as welcoming as possible. Sia was startled out of her thoughts by the sound of a flute. A tiny gem girl stood there, just a few paces away from her table, playing… of course it was the royal fanfare. As the girl finished the piece, Sia wanted to applaud, but was saved from doing so as she watched a Gemminite woman stand up, and her Drakken beside her. Sia covered Sorrin’s eyes with one hand, and plugged her ears with the other, so that the girl wouldn’t see the grisly neck-breaking that Sia suspected was about to happen. Sure enough, her fear came true. The fire inside Sia burned, and her skin flared with its golden stripes of flame again. As the kerfuffle died down, she uncovered Sorrin’s eyes and ears, stood up and took the gem girl by the hand. [color=f0a446]“Sorrin, we’re leaving. This is no place for a Gem, not once blood has been spilled.”[/color] As they walked down the hall towards their suite, Sia noticed none other than Zakroti Unalim, the husband of the flutist. His face was drawn, brow furrowed. He was worried, as rightly he should be. [color=f0a446]“My lord Unalim!”[/color] Sia exclaimed, curtsying slightly to the short Drakken. She’d followed his rise to power (of course; who in Drakka hadn’t?) and admired the man considerably. Short men were looked down upon as much as women were, as weak and soft. He had such power, and such ambition. He could be an ally. [color=f0a446]“If you don’t mind, may I speak with you for a moment?”[/color] [hr] [center][color=fda5e7][h3][i]Aerienna Cassiel[/i][/h3] [sub]Bride of Lugft Huron [@agentmanatee], sister-bride to Atallia Faeron [@NarcissisticPotato][/sub][/color][/center] Aery couldn’t help but blush and bite her lip as she wondered what was in store for her for the evening. Judging by the firm, powerful grip of the arm around her waist, she was in for a pretty rough night… Not that that would necessarily be a horrible thing. [color=fda5e7]“It would be an honor to be considered perfection in the eyes of so influential a Drakken.”[/color] The words fell softly, like honey, from her lips, as she tried on a seductive expression. Head tilted slightly, eyes half-lidded, a tiny one-sided smirk on her lips. (To be completely honest, she had no idea what she was doing, but she’d seen other girls use that look before.) [color=fda5e7]“My lord is too kind. I have seen this kind of spread at only the royal banquets, and I was only allowed to partake after the nobles had their share. Assuming my mentor would even let me eat; too often I had to stay and paint all of the court lords and ladies.”[/color] The small girl was content to lean against her husband for the moment, watching all of the finely dressed Drakken and their scared, dolled-up brides, like so many little flowers clinging to the arms and hands of dragons. Until, that is, she heard the flute. Then she sat bolt upright, her face going pale; she had to stand on the seat of her chair to see over it. Miry stood there in the center of the room, her eyebrows furrowed in determination, fingers all but flying over the tone holes. Aery covered her mouth with a hand. Even with the orchestra, Miry had never performed so well… …And someone was going to die for it. Another girl, probably one of Miry’s friends from the orchestra, jumped to her feet clapping, only to have her neck summarily snapped without any word from her Drakken. Aery froze, the air around her suddenly becoming dead and still. Her Drakken lord offered her his goblet—oh, lovely. The girl took a sip of the wine as she was bid, fighting to keep from wrinkling her nose at the strong taste. So unlike anything they had in Gemminia. [color=fda5e7]“They always said I was the impulsive one but I’ve never gotten anyone killed for my stupidity…”[/color] The words fell dead and expressionless, Aery just staring off blankly. Something was wrong. She’d seen a number of guardsmen, presumably from Miry’s husband’s guard, all but run out the door after her sister, and hadn’t heard them come back. All of a sudden terror seized her, horror and fear and dread and a protective instinct and a sudden wash of other thoughts that she couldn’t hope to sort out. This had happened before, of course. Then they were younger, whenever Miry had a performance that she was stressed out about, Aery would also get extremely nervous, not able to keep any food down or anything. When Aery had fallen out of a tree as a child and broken her leg, Miry had been unable to stand for the pain in her own leg. The physicians had said it was something that sometimes happened, between twins, and they didn’t know why, but it was just something they’d have to learn to live with. A moment of pure terror and the room spun around her; the air gem gasped, clasping a trembling hand over her mouth and squinting her eyes shut, cutting off her own airflow. She didn’t necessarily want to be unconscious in a room full of horny Drakken, but… It was better than sitting here in agony, wondering what was happening to her sister. [hr] [center][color=c2a5fd][h3][i]Aymiria Cassiel[/i][/h3] [sub]Bride of Zakroti Unalim [@darkwolf687], sister-bride of Kasari Liesma [@WeepingLiberty][/sub][/color][/center] It took a long moment for Miry’s thoughts to catch up. First the guard spoke of… vultures and the weak and the strong. Blaming the guilty, not the weak. But… Had the girl been in her right mind, she would have replied with one of her tutor’s favorite arguments. [i]“If the king orders an execution, on whose conscience does the murder fall? The king’s, or his loyal executioner’s?”[/i] But given everything that had happened she just shook her head and wiped at her streaming eyes, not daring to look at the Drakken who had spoken to her. There was a commotion by the door; Miry clutched Bunny tighter to her chest, not daring to look. Until the moment she saw a sword in her peripheral vision, brought just inches away from her nose and the rabbit in her arms. [i]”Hand it over, girl.”[/i] Miry shook her head, curling closer around Bunny, who squeaked in protest to being squished, or maybe smelling the little Gem’s fear. The sword point moved closer, the tip just slightly pressing into Miry’s arm. She flinched but did not move her hand, or that sword would press right into her little Bunny’s neck. A harshly spoken word and a crash; Miry looked up in time to narrowly miss being hit by a shield being swung over her head. The girl squeaked and dove backwards, away from the melee. She hadn’t even really had to dive away, because a second later Zakroti’s voice echoed around the small stone room, and all the combatants froze. The rest of the exchange was entirely lost on Miry, in part due to the rapid-fire foreign tongue and in part due to the fact that she realized one of the guards had taken her flute and was now absently twirling it between his fingers, making eye contact with her the whole time and smirking. Then the guard’s face lit up and he pretended to offer the instrument back to her. Of course Miry knew it was a trick but that didn’t stop her from helplessly lunging for it anyway. The guard was… laughing, as he dropped the delicate ivory thing to the floor, and stamped the heel of his boot on it multiple times. A muffled sob worked its way out of Miry’s throat as she reached for the instrument, narrowly missing getting her fingers stamped under Tyrlal’s boot. The man turned and left the room, still smirking, and Miry, half-crying, tried to pick up the remnants of her flute. Maybe it would be possible to pour some resin into the cracks and make it playable again. …Or maybe not. The moment the girl tried to pick up the pieces of the instrument, there was a faint crumbling noise, and the still vaguely tube-shaped halves disintegrated into a bunch of random shards. She whimpered again, tears welling up for what felt like the hundredth time. Her fingers closed around what had been the top of the flute, which had remained, at least, somewhat intact. The ornate letter “M” on the top had a hairline crack through it, and where the piece had broken off was horrifically jagged and sharp, but… It was the most recognizable bit of the whole thing. Small fingers gripped the piece of the instrument tightly, not caring that the jagged edges dug into her palm; with the other arm she cradled Bunny and held her small basket of clothing. Vain took her by the arm, and she did not resist as he led her to the private rooms that she could only assume had been set aside for every lord and his brides. Miry gave the room only a cursory inspection before she sat down against the wall next to the fireplace, letting her basket and her pet fall to the floor next to her. Bunny nuzzled her face, emitting a concerned squeak. The girl distractedly patted her bunny’s head with her left hand, staring blankly at the floor in front of her, blue eyes glazed. Her right hand played with the broken bit of flute, rolling it between her fingers, not seeming to care that the sharp points tore into her palm. Her mind was a tumble of thoughts and emotions. A lovely black-haired girl yelping in pain, dropping her viol and holding up her bloodied hand, one of the strings having snapped and lashed across her palm. Hazy memories of flipping a copper to a lovely child with a wooden plank, random salvaged strings pinned to it, the girl trying to play melodies on it, a mostly empty wooden bowl in the street muck in front of her, a row of urchins clad in rags peeking out of a dilapidated box behind her. Some knight on his high horse deciding to knock the girl down into the mud, causing her to land on her makeshift instrument and snap it. No. No, this wasn’t right. Too many broken things. The day of the Princess’s birthday, the sonata written to honor her. When all of the violists had turned up with broken strings less than an hour before the concert. A dual concerto that ended in Astrae having a mental breakdown and leaving the stage in tears. Too many broken things. That day when she just… couldn’t perform and had made a fool of herself and the entire orchestra. The silver blade that Liiren had pressed against her lips, leaving a tiny scar that hurt fiercely whenever she played, as a reminder of her failure. The sickening crack of a broken flute… and of a broken neck. The sounds… were too similar. Broken. Miry choked on a sob, leaning her head back against the wall and shutting her eyes in an effort to stem the flow of tears. [color=c2a5fd][i]I can’t…[/i][/color] the words formed on her lips but she could not seem to utter them. She tried again, forming the words, but her voice wouldn’t cooperate. [color=c2a5fd][i]Help? Please…[/i][/color] Her mouth moved as though she should have been speaking, but no sound escaped her. Angrily, now, the small girl smacked her head back against the wall, more tears leaking out from under closed eyelids. [i]Get it together, Aymiria. That Drakken is right… this is a land where the strong prey on the weak. Astrae is dead and you just… break? Pathetic. Without your friends all you have is your music. Without your music all you have is your voice. And without your voice you are nothing. You are nothing. You are worthless. You should have died instead of Astrae. Let the worthy ones live and the useless ones die.[/i] [i][color=c2a5fd]I am [b]not[/b] nothing.[/color][/i] But the words fell silent. [hr] [hider=summary] [color=f0a446][b]Siadamkiru:[/b] Plotty plotty plotty….[/color] [color=fda5e7][b]Aerienna:[/b] Exploring the connection of twin-ness, trying to make herself pass out to stop feeling what Miry is feeling.[/color] [color=c2a5fd][b]Aymiria:[/b] Poor, poor Miry, done gone mute. Vague flashbacks to how she met Astrae and various musical things, all revolving around the theme of [i]breaking[/i].[/color] [/hider]