She is not the first to hear of his return. She is one of the first, but not the first, and so, the moment she hears a whisper of the Prince’s return, she turns on her heel and runs to the palace.
By right of her title, her birth and her own merit, she slips through gates and guards with ease. No one questions why the Lady Crownguard rushes through the halls. A guard offers the prince’s current location - just outside the barracks - as she walks past. Lux raises a hand in thanks and wonders. No one questions what the Lady Luxanna Crownguard seeks in the palace. What does that mean? She steps into the room without knocking, watches as Jarvan turns as soon as he hears the door click.
Jarvan is blood-splattered and dirty.
She sees him and is immediately relieved and happy at the same time.
Lux is no soldier toiling away at a task she hates for duty. She does not hate war. She does not love it either, but she does not hate it. She does not dislike it. It is necessary.
(They are not people of peace, nor do they know peace, so how can they make peace?)
She accepts his greeting with a quick bow of her own, and then stands straight, gaze leveled at him evenly. “If you’d like, I can come back later your majesty.”
“No, no,” Jarvan replies immediately, dismissing the very idea with a wave of his hand. It matters little if Lux heard of his return and rushed to the castle, or if she was here beforehand; what he cares for is that she is here now, and seeing her--bright and aglow in the way only she can be, untouched and pure as a lady of her standing is expected to be--is a gentle reminder to calm the heart that still beats like insistent war drums within his chest.
(He is not on the battlefield anymore, and it is not appropriate to stain her with these colors--even if she wears them beautifully, not unlike a goddess of war.)
“It’s good to see you. With these campaigns and your duties, I feel like it’s been months since I met you last. Perhaps I ought to make use of the couriers and send you some letters when I’m away?”
It is a silly idea to get as excited as he feels, but every so often, he finds that he misses her and everything she is beneath her title, her image, and her role. Before she was the Lady of Luminosity, she was simply Luxanna Crownguard--and beneath even that, Lux. (And he wonders, at times, if that little girl is still there--the girl with the pretty blue eyes and the pretty little smile, the girl who was Garen’s little sister to him before anything else.)
