@tmiina said: ❝ were that to happen, losses would be incalculable. ❞
The moment she stepped foot on Ravkan soil, Astoria ripped the scrap of ribbon from her hair and tore her curls, matted and tangled as they were, free from their braid. She has not braided her hair since.
It is a rebellion of the same shade as her insistence that her kefta be more closely fitted. There are practical reasons for it, just as there are practical reasons for her to twist and pin her hair up: less to grab, should someone try, and it makes it harder to pin her down. But mostly, it reminds her that she’s not Fjerdan any longer, and that alone is reason enough. She cannot so easily escape the way Fjerda built her, in her accent and the cadence of her words and her preference for the Fjerdan saints, and so this freedom from who she was, limited though it may be, gives her space enough to build who she is.
He watches as she trains, sometimes, curious to see how her power will manifest now that she has a real outlet for it; in truth, he watches all of the students, determined to piece together an army that can hold its own, but she is new, and a recent distraction will almost certainly always win out over the familiar. He is the one to recommend that she work with a Heartrender, when he realizes her affinity for blood, and he is the one present when she finally, finally succeeds in making the cadaver’s blood boil. The sight and the smell of it are both gruesome, but she is pleased, and she very nearly feels herself evolving in his estimation.
She is more than just an idle curiosity, after that.