Ridahne looked on at the door that Hanasha-Sol had come through, her head spinning with a mix of thoughts and feelings she wasn't sure what to do with at the moment. On the one hand, there was a haughty resentment towards this place and everything it had ever meant for her. This place ruined her, in some ways. Or maybe it merely ruined what she could have been. Should have been. Ridahne looked at Darin again. No, not 'should have'. She was doing what she should have been doing all along, and she didn't really regret that. In other ways, this place represented the part of her that despite everything, had felt whole. It wasn't perfect, no, but she had a home and a culture and a man and her brother and the ever-shifting hills of the Dust Sea. It represented something that had been stripped from her, and the actions and words of the Sols were essentially granting it back to her. This, which she never thought she'd lose and yet came to think she'd never see again. Her home. There was elation and anger and some little residual resentment and relief and an unease she didn't know how to deal with. 

Ridahne's eyes went glassy and empty for a moment as Darin suggested she make the warrior her own personal Taja. It made sense, and she kind of already was, but the implications of that among her own culture...It wouldn't change anything between them, not really. But it would drastically alter her title when she was among her own. The whole mix of things just kind of came down on her at once and it was a rare thing, but Ridahne sort of shut down for a moment. She was a person who operated well under pressure but just this once she couldn't quite grasp it all. The episode was brief, and outwardly her expression remained still, if a little vacant. But inside her mind was racing, trying to process everything. 

"Aye...I suppose I am already in all but title..." [i]But title means a lot in Azurei.[/I] She was silent as Darin went on, and when her sister finished speaking, Ridahne blinked and came back to herself a little with a small sigh. "It's complicated, I know. Convoluted and twisted and confusing. It is for me too, in my own ways. But I don't really blame them for what they did to me. It brought me to you. And I know you say the Tree likely would have called but...Darin, I'm not really sure I would have answered back then. Not that call. I think the Tree spoke to me in the way it knew I would listen, speaking my language if you will. But fate had to break me, first. I don't expect you to really forgive them, not yet anyway. But I don't want it to ruin Auzurei for you. It's my home, after all, and at one point those people were my Sols. They both are and are not, now. They are a part of me." Ridahne offered a small, knowing smile and said, "But it's not like personal grudges are easy to be rid of. Trust me. Speaking of...I...I want to visit Khaltira's grave. I need to. But I..." the words stuck in her throat. "I...I don't want to go alone," she admitted softly.

Footsteps, heavier this time, sounded outside the door, along with a softly muffled male voice. Ridahne straightened, eyes fixing on the door. Her gaze flicked to Darin for just a moment, flashing a mischievous smirk her way before melting into the shadows behind a stack of hay. She put one finger to her lips. 

The door opened, and a tall, broad, well-sculpted man entered. His sash and wide silver collar across his chest marked him immediately as taja, but the carnelian spiral in his ear that was identical in make to the one Ridahne wore around her neck marked him as Ajoran. His spiral was blank in the center, unlike hers. It would be presumptuous to carve Ridahne's clan marking into it when she had not officially given him answer to his proposal, but its blankness was a signifier of his waiting. He carried a scimitar at his waist--one he likely made himself once upon a time--and did not wear shoes. Shoes in Azurei seemed exclusively a utilitarian thing, and it was not uncouth or unseemly for someone of high status to not wear any. His eyes were darker than Ridahne's, more a burnt orange than a light honey amber. He also wore little silver plates in his ears like Ridahne's that sat fitted in the tapered curve of each helix, and a silver hoop in one nostril. He was a tall, imposing sort of man, though there was a softness in his eyes that belied his mountainous build. 

Ajoran strode in, shoulders straight, looking at Darin with an expression of polite confusion. He lifted his chin. "I was told to--"
Ridahne sprang out behind him, though the moment she clapped her long hands over his eyes, his own whipped around to clamp down on her wrists. He yanked her forward and with a heave, hurled her over his head and slammed down on the ground. His sword was out in the next instant, but as he heard the familiar laugh coming from the prone woman, he dropped the weapon. 
"Ri...Ridahne..." he could only breathe the word. He dropped to his knees so his face was just over hers, though each seemed upside down to the other. 
Ridahne was laughing, though she was wheezing a little from having the air knocked out of her. "I had to...make sure you...hadn't gone soft on me..." She didn't have much more chance to explain, because he went right in and kissed her, and she was happy to kiss him back. Long. Deep. Passionately. 

They came up for air and Ajoran helped her up, tears in his eyes. "It really is you...you're alive, you're alive, you're alive! Y--" He caught sight of her ojih for the first time and squinted at it. "There's a lot I don't know..." this was a statement of fact. He traced one thick finger over her newest tattoos. "What...are these?"
Ridahne could have melted under that touch. But instead she hooked a thumb over her shoulder at Darin and said playfully, "Don't ask me, ask her..." 
Ajoran blinked. "Her.....?" And then they both got to watch realization blossom on his face. "By the Tree...you're....you're...[I]her.[/I]" And like Hadian, Ajoran marched right up and scooped up Darin in a massive, crushing hug. He even picked her up and swung her around in a circle, and it was nothing for him to do so. But he put her down suddenly and jumped back a step, looking nervous. "Oh! Can I--am I allowed to do that?"
Ridahne laughed. "Careful, squeeze her any harder and I might have to draw steel on you." Her tone was light. "I'm the Guardian of the Seed bearer, Seed Chained. Someday I will be Seed Honored." 
Ajoran did not need an explanation to know that was an incredible honor indeed. He bowed once to Darin and said, "Thank you for bringing the Moon back to me, my Isfahan, my Ridahne. I can't repay you enough."