at sunset
mission: anniversary 2021; bow +1
She’s here.
The letter she’d left behind is in his room, neatly folded without a single wrinkle otherwise marring the paper. Lord Xander, it’d begun, looped in her messy, childish script—and that’s how he knew that it was to tell him nothing good. She was to leave. It’d been difficult enough to deal with the whispers of the army when they were at war, chastising her for the open way she spoke to and of him. It’s undoubtedly worse in Nohr, where the aristocracy are harsher in their judgments.
Xander was upset, of course, but not with her. How could he be, when the fault was so clearly his own? Peri is his retainer; his responsibility. He should have known she was distressed and addressed the matter immediately, rather than letting her think she needed to improve herself to meet some criteria he never did and never intended to impose on her.
He’d had his men search through Nohr, sifting through the kingdom with a fine-toothed comb. Now, he knows why she’d been impossible to find.
“Peri.”
She looks well. Healthy, with color in her cheeks, a bounce to her step. Alive.
That’s good.
@noblebutcher