[hider=The Promise]

[i]Somewhere in Kvatch[/i]

Somewhere in a lonely Inn in Kvatch, sat a woman in her quietly modest room, completely out of place. Ashen hair, brittle blue eyes, dressed entirely in black. The only colour about her was from the ring on her finger. This foreign woman observed the ring, admiring the lustre and cut of the red stone in the centre, but there was definitie apprehension in the ache of the coldness of the band. The absolute mundanity of it, beautiful and luxurious as it was. 

This ring was a promise of something better and while normally she’d leap at the chance to snatch her claws into an opportunity, this particular promise was empty and unforgiving. It was a promise from a man who had decided long ago that Reinette couldn’t survive the world alone. 

She stifled a yawn and closed her fist over the smooth oak armrest of the chair she was set in, listening to the feeling of the band touch the wood. Unpleasant. Behind the closed doors of her secret room, Reinette felt quite comfortable to release her upset. It was the sight of her finger adorned with a flawless ruby that made her feel so indignant tonight. She didn’t like the look of it, nor the shine, nor the weight, nor the meaning. 

Gold bought men their feeling of power, and in this case, the gold had kept perversion from her door after her home had been cruelly taken from her. Had she not had the ruby, and more importantly, the giver of such a ring, she might well have been in her grave. She [i]did[/i] owe him that.

Her impenetrable blue and grey gaze pointed down at it and she sighed. 

Outside of her window offered her a far better vision. Beyond the backwashed currents of people shuffling over the bent and broken spine of the town, the place had been set alight with an orange glow that was falling out in long flakes, lighting up the sprawling horizon beyond Kvatch too, out upon the fields and forest, like smelting pots in the mark of the sun setting.

At least out there, something was alive - unlike the cold band around her finger, stifling her blood flow. She took the ring off, and placed it back into its velvet pouch.

One thing was certain to Reinette, that nothing got under her skin more than the feeling of powerlessness. That Skingrad was such an unsafe place for her to go to now didn’t frighten her, no. It enraged her. It had left her in a state of inbetween, with a promise from a benefactor as potentially her safest course of action. 

Instead, Reinette made a promise to herself. Not today, and most likely not tomorrow either… But she would get her home back. She’d seize back her place from Count Hruldan, be part of whatever movement it would be that seized Skingrad back from his iron grip. The last thing he would do, would be to choke on his own arrogance. Reinette was judicious in her pursuit for revenge, or did this feel more like justice in heart? Was that chill that crept up her spine truly just a howl of vengeance?

Whatever it was, she wished for it to cease - the noise. 

As they often did, the woman’s fingers quivered to summon forth a pool of a spell into her palm, energy moving and growing around her like a balm of all of her favourite things, instant comfort over her raw and exposed being.

The smell of lavender, lilies, and tulips on a warm morning. Every now and then, a wafting scent of Hammerfell sand carried on a midday breeze, followed by warm champagne and berries in a moonlit garden. The illusion moved around her as she breathed, each slower and deeper than the last until sound slipped in. The pages of an old book turning, a flickering candle, ocean waves retreating to the shore over and over again. Finally, in the furthest pocket of distance, and only when she was completely settled, was the sound of a child’s laughter.

She formed a tapestry from the threads of her spell, until she was bathed in naught but silent moonlight. 

[/hider]