[table][row][cell][img]https://i.imgur.com/MrFrT8O.png[/img][/cell][cell][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/241224/2dff96a131a2215857bd81cacd3d277e.png[/img][/cell][/row]
[row][cell][sub]Location: Eye of the Beholder[/sub][/cell][/row][/table]Nyla held her faint smile as Thalia delivered her final remark, watching the redhead step away with poise and casual dismissal. Nyla didn’t flinch beneath the bladed undertones left in her wake. She let it pass like a breeze—unaffected, maintaining her facial expression. As if she didn’t understand the barb. Didn’t feel the weight of it.

But she did.
And she’d remember it.

With Thalia’s back to her, Nyla slowly let the smile fade. Her expression went still—neutral and unreadable—as her gaze lingered on the woman’s straight spine and carefully measured stride.

A beat passed. Then a soft scoff escaped. [color=DBA73D]“Charming,”[/color] she murmured under her breath.

When Thalia vanished around a corner, Nyla turned her gaze back to the tavern. She suspected now, with no small amount of irritation, that the mysterious man from the hot springs wouldn’t be making an appearance at all.

But the cold gnawed at her bones. And there were other [s](more boring)[/s] kinds of warmth she could chase.

She stepped inside, the scent of smoke and ale hitting her first. Her eyes swept the room—still annoyingly searching for dark hair and a crooked smile—and then halted. 

Across the room, Aldrick was pressing a four-armed blight-born against the wall.

Her brow arched. 

Gliding around a few loitering patrons, she claimed an empty table near the front door and set the basket of cookies in its center. Settling in, she rested her chin on her knuckles and observed. 

Aldrick’s words didn’t carry to her, but the tension did. She’d seen him handle himself in tavern brawls a handful of times in the past. He was more clever than he let on, at times more ruthless than his charm suggested, and quick to pivot between grace and grit. But he wasn’t usually the one to instigate a fight. 

It felt strange to see him playing the aggressor.

But whatever spark had caught seemed to fizzle out just as quickly. Words were exchanged. Aldrick stepped away and the blight-born moved around him—just in time for a guard to appear and deliver some type of parchment directly to him. 

Nyla’s brow furrowed as the four-armed man loudly proclaimed he had royal matters to attend to. His theatrical flourish might’ve coaxed a laugh from her on any other day, were she not already narrowing her eyes on the guard tacking a notice to the tavern door. 

As he stepped aside, her eyes scanned the parchment. 

A summons for [i]unregistered[/i] blight-born. The interview Flynn had told her about.

Her stomach turned. 

She dropped her gaze to the table, the noise around her dulling. Laughter. Plates clinking. Chairs scraping wood. It all blurred together as her thoughts spiraled.

Flynn had asked her to attend the interview. And she’d said she would.

He wanted her to sit in a room and bare herself to him and his advisor—a stranger? Explain who she was—what she’d become. Let them see. Catalog it. Write it down and file it away in a drawer like she was something to be managed?

Another wave of nausea twisted through her. 

Was it the summons? The reminder of Flynn and his new [i]wife[/i]? Or maybe it was the cookies she’d forced herself to eat earlier—the [i]performance food[/i]. She hadn’t even wanted them. She’d only needed to be seen eating. Needed to look alive. 

Her mouth went dry. Her hand curled into a fist beneath her chin, nails biting into skin.

She had always been something to manage, hadn’t she?

[b][i]No.[/i][/b]
She wouldn’t go. Not today. Maybe not ever. 

If Flynn wanted her there, he could come find her himself. 

She didn’t owe [i]him[/i] anything. 

She could keep the illusion going forever if she had to. Outside of the few who mattered, no one needed to know what she’d become. All she had to do was keep smiling. Keep eating. Keep breathing like them. Her glamour hadn’t cracked yet. Not even when she was drunk.

She was, after all, [i]just[/i] a performer. 

She could hold it. 

…Couldn’t she?

But she felt it—minute by minute—quiet and constant. The slow attrition of magic. The inevitable drain that would eventually strip warmth from her skin and brightness from her eyes.

Still. She wasn’t going to that fucking interview. 

She’d rest. Let her stomach settle. Let her balance return. 

Then she’d find herself a home. Something to call her own and pretend it meant she belonged here.  

She wasn’t a footnote. She’d write her own damn chapter. With or without his approval.

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[Sub][b]Mentions:[/b] Thalia [@Qia], Vellion [@Dark Light], Aldrick [@SpicyMeatball], Claret [@Dezuel][/sub]