@fereldea. continued.
elethea is aware she isn’t, perhaps, anyone’s favorite sibling. especially not orlaith’s. too harsh, too cold, too distant, too critical. always shut away in the library when everyone else played. even now, orlaith’s tears stir irritation more than sympathy. elethea is fully capable of swallowing her tears, swallowing her grief until she choked on it, why can’t orlaith? that isn’t to say she doesn’t feel any sympathy, seeing her baby sister reduced to her breathless sobs moves something in her chest. a sense of cracking ice somewhere deep within her that she had shut away the moment their parents died.
she hadn’t told anyone that she’d taken it. not even their mother, though in the urgency of their escape, she’d hardly had time to ask permission. merely grabbed it and stuffed it in her pocket so rendon howe couldn’t sully it with his touch. perhaps she wasn’t ever going to tell orlaith that she kept it, but now... perhaps it would bring her some comfort as it had given elethea. graceful hands reach up to untie the blue satin ribbon tied about her neck, dipping into her tunic to obscure what was strung on it.
as she lifts up, the silver ring glints in the low light of the candlestick she had smuggled into their shared tent. engraved with the laurel wreath of their family’s insignia. their father’s signet ring, too big to fit on any of her slender fingers, even her thumb, but needing to keep it close, she had worn it about her neck for weeks now. its surely still warm from her skin as she rests it in the center of her little sister’s palm, and closes her fingers around it. “when we were gathering up jewelry to sell during the escape, i saw this on mama’s vanity, and i couldn’t let howe’s men get it,” when she took it, she did not think it would be the only physical thing that she would have left of their father’s. but now it was, and it felt more precious than any jewel, even if it was just roughly hammered iron, worn with age. as ancient as their family line. “it makes me feel... as if he’s close,” the sentimental words are foreign on her tongue, and she can’t quite meet orlaith’s eyes as she says them, only lowers them to their joined hands. the tenderest expression she’d ever shown her. “perhaps... it will help you feel the same.”