[center][img]https://i.ibb.co/ssxt53R/Thalia-Evercrest.png[/img][/center][hr][right][sub]Location: Outside Eye of the Beholder
Interactions: Nyla ([@The Muse])[/sub][/right][hr]
[indent] Lark surged ahead, a black-and-silver comet against the snow, his paws churning powder into glittering arcs. He hurled himself into a drift with the fervor of a knight breaching castle walls, emerging with his muzzle frosted and eyes blazing triumph. Thalia’s lips twitched despite herself. “[color=#663399]Tyrant,[/color]” she called, her breath a pale plume. “[color=#663399]
Leave some snow for the rest of us, would you?[/color]”

He shook himself vigorously, spraying diamonds, then circled back to nudge her thigh with a damp nose. [i]Your turn,[/i] his wagging tail seemed to insist. She huffed, bending to ruffle the ice from his ears. “[color=#663399]I may not be a lady anymore, Lar, but I don’t think it will do for me to just swim in a pile of snow.[/color]”

He’d been her shadow through every unraveling. When suitors’ carriages stopped rolling up their drive, when her mother’s letters grew sparse and formal, Lark had remained as a steady weight at the foot of her bed, a silent critic of her failed embroidery. She wondered if he missed the manicured hedges of Evercrest Manor, the well lit parlors where he’d sprawled like a lord. If so, he didn’t show it. Here, he was a creature of immediacy: snow, squirrels, the next thrown stick. No ghosts were in his gaze it seemed. Thalia clung to that fact like a prayer. 

They were halfway across the square, making their way toward the half-buried barn, when a voice called out behind them. 

“[color=DBA73D]Thalia, yes?[/color]” 

Not [i]Lady Evercrest[/i].

And it hit harder than she expected. Not because she missed the title. She didn’t. Not really. But because it marked a shift in how the world saw her and, perhaps more tellingly, in how she was learning to see herself. In Aurelia, names were always wrapped in ribbon and expectation. “Lady Evercrest” came with obligations. “Thalia,” on the other hand, was just… her.

Names, she realized then, were cages as much as they were crowns.

Thalia turned, gloved hand tightening on Lark’s collar.

“[color=#663399]That’s right,[/color]” Thalia said, her tone a careful alloy of courtesy and steel. All the while, Lark sniffed the air, tail slowing to a metronome’s beat. [i]Not a threat[/i], his posture decided. And that was good enough for Thalia to carry on. 

“[color=#663399]Have we…met?[/color]” Thalia asked, head tilting slightly to the side. The woman standing before her had the kind of beauty that didn’t beg for attention. It simply assumed it. Dark hair spilled over her shoulders in waves, a cascade of shadows that seemed to absorb what little light flickered from nearby lanterns. Gold shimmered at her ears and throat, not in the showy, overwrought way nobles wore it, but with the ease of someone used to performing beneath candle glow and firelight. She looked like someone who belonged on a stage, or in the center of a story, never just on the sidelines.

Thalia’s eyes flicked briefly to the basket the woman held and then back to her face.

“[color=#663399]I’m…sorry if I’m supposed to recognize you,[/color]” she said, the apology brittle. She cursed the stumble in her tone, the ghost of etiquette lessons haunting her tongue. “[color=#663399]It’s just… it's been some time since I’ve seen anyone else, really.[/color]”

The admission hung between them, raw as a nerve. Lark pressed against her leg, a silent rebuke. [i]Too much[/i], his warmth seemed to chide. [i]Too soon[/i].

Now that she gave it some thought, however, Thalia realized she hadn’t even seen him yet either, the prince whose presence supposedly tethered this whole frozen endeavor together. The one she was meant to coexist with and love in her own way once upon a time. Her mother would have called it disgraceful. 

And Thalia? She wasn’t quite sure what she called it. Avoidance, perhaps. On her end, that is. Not that she believed Flynn even remembered her. Why would he? They’d only gone on a couple of dates before fate, maybe even Aelios herself, had decided that she was unworthy of that kind of life. She could still recall the careful way her mother had draped her in silk for their very first one, arranging her hair tidily and murmuring reminders about posture and poise. She’d worn expectations like a second skin. She’d smiled until her cheeks hurt. She’d laughed at just the right pitch, and navigated small talk with the precision of a seasoned diplomat. Every move, every word, choreographed for the brief moments she shared with Prince Flynn. 

And yet, despite the weight of it all, Thalia had found herself actually enjoying Flynn's company after some time.  He had been refreshingly genuine amidst the calculated artifice of court life, asking real questions, offering real laughter, and seeming to listen, truly listen, when she spoke. She’d liked that about him more than she’d anticipated. Liked that his attention never felt like obligation or charity, but interest. Genuine, unguarded interest.

Then came the Fall. Not the grand, tragic kind bards sang of either. 

A misplaced word at a banquet. A priest’s divination etched in black ink. Flynn’s letters, once brimming with wit, dwindled to formal scrolls sealed with a stranger’s hand. The Lunarian princess’s name became a refrain in court gossip, each syllable a needle in Thalia’s ribs. 

[i]Almost[/i], they’d whispered. [i]Almost a queen.[/i]

She had packed those memories away, stacked them neatly beside all the other might-have-beens in her life—tucked into the same mental trunks they’d hauled north from Aurelia, too heavy to leave behind but too precious to discard. Yet now, standing here in the perpetual twilight of Dawnhaven and faced with someone who knew her, or at least her name, from those fleeting days, Thalia felt something stir inside her chest, uncomfortable and unbidden.

The past, it seemed, wasn’t buried as deeply as she’d believed.
[/indent]