[center][img]https://i.ibb.co/ssxt53R/Thalia-Evercrest.png[/img][/center][hr][right][sub]Location: Community Barn
Interactions: Virgal ([@Dark Light]) 
Mentions: N/A [/sub][/right][hr]
[indent][indent] For a single, suspended moment, Thalia’s breath caught in her chest, arrested not by the violent swing of the barn door or the clumsy intrusion of a man swaddled in excessive layers, but by the light that poured in with him. It was real, golden, and utterly impossible. This was not the dull, contained glow of a lantern, nor the flickering dance of fire, nor the dim, greasy burn of oil or coal. 

It was [i]sunlight[/i].

A visceral tightness seized her throat. She hadn't seen its like since Aurelia, since before the unending winter descended, smothering every vestige of green and withering her mother’s cherished gardens under a perpetually leaden sky. The warmth that now brushed her cheek was thin, clearly artificial, yet it struck her with the force of a profound and aching memory. It was a ghost of better days, a tactile reminder of a world that felt irretrievably lost.

A profound ache bloomed in her chest, a physical yearning for what that light represented: the simple, vital act of standing beneath an open sky, feeling true warmth on her skin, her magic thrumming contentedly, fully fed. How many mornings had she risen at dawn to ride Mariselle across fields glittering with dew, the sun gilding the horizon and her power humming, steady and limitless, at her very fingertips? That girl, who had felt infinite beneath that celestial fire, now seemed a lifetime removed from the woman standing in a drafty barn with hay tangled in her hair, watching a stranger drag a boar across the floor. 

Then her attention shifted to the man himself. He was a spectacle of ludicrous opulence, draped in layers of silk and rich furs, his garments dripping with intricate embroidery that belonged in the ballrooms of Aurelia, not the churned mud of a Dawnhaven barnyard. Every stitch, every jewelled clasp, every self-satisfied curse he muttered at the uncooperative pig served as a proclamation of his nobility. He wore his status not just with pride, but with an unconscious, inherited entitlement.

The entire show was uncomfortably familiar. It was a mirror of her former self, particularly during those first, stumbling days of her family’s disgrace, when clinging to the aesthetics of privilege was a last, desperate defence against a new and brutal reality.

Thalia’s lips compressed into a thin, bloodless line. She recognized that specific brand of stubbornness intimately; the reflexive, often foolish refusal to relinquish the external markers of dignity, even when they became a hindrance. The crucial difference was that life had forcibly stripped hers away, layer by layer, until nothing remained but the bare, functional essentials: a sturdy coat to withstand the wind, boots neatly patched and dependable, gloves that didn't mind the stink of livestock or soil.

He was a reflection of what she had been, and the sight left a distinctly sour taste in her mouth, a blend of pity and unwelcome nostalgia.

Thalia cleared her throat, brushing a stubborn fleck of straw from her sleeve.  

“[color=#663399]...Uhh,[/color]” she began, the sound dry and almost careless, “[color=#663399]hi? Nice staff you’ve got there….[/color]” And it was. For all the complicated, untenable feelings his appearance stirred, the sight of that captured sunlight was no less precious.

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