@guardandshield ( continuation )
Spine stiff, Aveline bit back the sharp retort burning at the tip of her tongue. She doubted the chit of a noble knew the first thing about real fear. The bowels to water, white knuckled horror of a Blight in front of you and nothing but your sword in hand and the knowledge that failure doomed the country you vowed to serve. Of course nothing about Ostagar had gone the way she thought it was going to. A traitor on the field, a king dead, and her soldiers retreating into a scattered arc in a lame attempt of survival. And now this…
“I assure you Serah, it is not fear that is causing me to wait.” Lips pressed together in a thin line. Some damned fool mage locked themselves in a Hightown manse. She’d be an idiot to go in without someone able to negate the fireballs bound to rain down on them or worse. “You should leave. If this mage turns abomination” when “the street won’t be safe.”
Always sticking her nose where it didn’t belong, she’d only gotten worse since becoming the sole heir. It had been an accident that she’d stumbled upon this scene, only armed with a dagger in case the worst happened in these crime-filled streets. Her guards were surely already worried but that wasn’t her concern right now; it was the tragedy that was about to strike this house so close to her own; so close to where it all went wrong. “If you wait there won’t be an ‘if’ in that sentence!”
Her words were sharp, unguarded, and tinted red with what was left of her rage at her deceased husband, at the Templars, and the city itself. “Bursting down a door with a bunch of templars is what will chase them into the arms of any demon nearby. Surely you see that’s a horrible plan.” Even as she wavered near the end ( pleading to see the sense of it all ) Aoife didn’t look away from the guard, couldn’t look away from her.
