[center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/250123/ceff40c83d09ef3426159af4e7909d75.png[/img][/center][hr][i]Seluna Temple[/i][hr]
Up and away Elara crept, as Ramona continued her prayer. Though Ramona registered it in the moment, she scarcely paid it much attention…until the door cracked open again as she concluded her prayer.

Prince and Princess had come, and here she was, the fool who stayed. Had Elara known? Surely, that reassuring nod was not simply a trap set for an unsuspecting servant. No, it felt too strange, and as Ramona clung to the ground for a moment longer, she could feel—or rather—remember the feeling. Elara had not quite fled, no. She was somewhere around, perhaps anticipating the interruption to her prayer and having fled just before the danger arrived. And that was not an instinct that one could blame her for. Especially not as she was so recognizable, so dear to a Princess who she was conspicuously not in the company of. 

Ramona stayed prostrate before the shrine, keeping her hands pressed firmly to the cold stone as she felt and listened. For a moment, she could not help but imagine that this odd perk of the blight she now enjoyed might have best suited Elara. The Princess, for whatever reason, had mastered not navigating the world with presence, but rather a shocking absence of it. She could drift through the world as a ghost, just as well as the most talented and unobtrusive of the world’s servants. And yet it was a Princess who managed to move with this frightful silence, slipping across life without even the ripples that a small insect might have left on water. With the clarity of an unnatural sense, Ramona knew the difference between Amaya’s careful footsteps and those of a timid servant. If there was little enough disturbance to allow them to shine through, the servant would offer a rehearsed restraint, one bound to the place for which it was intended. But the Princess? She walked as if she knew no other way but to fade into the background, as if it was something she knew as intimately as Seluna knew the night.

Ramona pressed her arms to the stone as well, feeling for the Princess’ movements to the best of her ability. The Aurelian Prince was easy. His stance sent clear ripples through the ground, the stance of a man who really was doing his level best to suggest that he was meant to be standing there, regardless of how certain he actually was. It was less consistent in precisely how he stood, but it was always fairly clear. The Princess needed all her attention if her stance was to be discerned through the ripples in the ground. It was like trying to pick out a creaking chair in a loud tavern.

Finally, Ramona bent forward a bit more, lifting her arms from the stone so she could look under herself. She’d have to collect the wax later. Everyone was looking away; now was the time to disappear.

[color=#007BA7][i]‘Damnit.’[/i][/color]

She couldn’t leave the handmaiden here. Had she ever properly snuck out? Did she know to? Did she want to? But her look—that look they’d shared—damnit, she definitely wasn’t meant to be here either. At least not like this.

In the spur of the moment, Ramona rose quickly and quietly, and slipped in the direction she’d felt Elara’s footsteps. Her flipped-back veil fell down and rested on her nose, not covering her entire face as it was meant to, but still covering her eyes. She shuffled into the corridor, out of sight to the others, and crouched, pressing her hand to the ground.

She was getting the sense that Elara was definitely still here. And definitely not doing well. Was she that frightened of being caught doing something other than whatever errand she must have put off to do this?

Ramona stood, and crept along the corridor, pressing her hand to each new column to keep tabs on the unmistakable feeling of someone being altogether too nervous.

As she approached the room Elara had hidden herself in, Ramona removed her shawl, preparing to offer it to Elara to hide her striking locks and facilitate a quiet, easy escape. In the dim moonlight, Ramona’s bare, pallid skin glistened as if she had just wiped away the sweat of a fever. 

Without saying a word, Ramona stood there, shawl in hand, and knocked on the threshold to get Elara’s attention. She cocked her head, offering Elara the sort of awkward, tight-lipped expression somewhere between a gentle smile and hesitant grimace that one is apt to offer when offering help to someone that one imagines one ought to know better than one in fact happens to. And she held the shawl forward, trying to silently convey the sentiment of, [color=#007BA7][i]‘Will this help?’[/i][/color]

[b]Interactions[/b]
Elara [@Qia]
[b]Mentions[/b]
Amaya [@c3p-0h], Flynn [@The Muse]