Dawn Treader Valley Να πνίξεις όλα όσα οι άλλοι λεν μες τη σιωπή

The valley was beautiful.

Andromache picked through the tall vibrant grasses for a time, finding flowers here and there which she tucked into her fur. For a moment she felt like a girl again; not a princess nor a demigod but a girl like any other, alone and afraid and overwhelmed with so much ahead of her. She sat beneath a wide tree and hummed to herself.

The night before the fall of Myros, her mother had visited her. Unannounced; she'd known immediately that something was wrong, for her mother was always very deliberate. Not that night. She'd come in haste, to warn them.

And for what?

For her. For this. She began to pick the flowers from her fur, feeling foolish. She could not waste her father's sacrifice on girlish whims. Andromache stood and straightened her fur, and set off in search of @Faustus.

There was a queendom to be built, and a man-child to be pacified, and so much work to be done for it all.

Andromache.
Ever regretful was he. Regretful to have cowered from her wrath, regretful to have even attempted to converse with those two bodyguards; regretful to be here at all.
And so, when she finds him, he is nestled in a bed of tall grass, overlooking the edge of the river that cuts the valley in half. It's quite beautiful here, isn't it? he hums nonchalantly, as if nothing had been wrong at all. Could be a good place to build an empire.

Andromache was wary, yet she nodded pleasantly. I've come to accept your offer. Equal rank; equal title, No sense in wasting time on small talk. Faustus had said it himself; there was an empire to be built. She followed his gaze along the river for a few moments, then looked to him.

If we're going to do this, we'll have to get along, A half-smile tugged at her lips. Try to get along. The situation wasn't ideal, but she could hardly blame Faustus for the fall of her people, as tempting as it might be. So, painfully, Andromache set aside just a little of her pride. It felt rather monumental to her.

Ah!
His smile stretches, and while to anyone else it may have been disingenuous, for her, it was true. A warm quality to it; toothy, as a laugh billows from his chest. A Lady you shall be, then, one paw snakes out amid the drygrass, in search of hers. A peace offering. and I a Lord.
And then; well, he thought himself easy enough to get along with! But she, perhaps, was another story. While he was a vulture that crowed and scavenged with talons made of steel, an opportunist; she was but a cobra. Venomous, dangerous.
An adversary. A barbarian. And yet here he was.
I wish to know you, Andromache, his voice is soft, gentle, which surprises even him. and I wish for you to know me. We are not enemies. Or at least they didn't have to be.

Her words sparked a shift in Faustus like the first warm breeze of spring overtaking winter; a glimpse of something genuine and perhaps vulnerable. Andromache was startled, and for the first time she saw nothing of Crispinus in him. Still, she tensed; he was a Roman, and his true intentions were unknown to her.

Her gaze dropped for a moment as she tried to decide how she felt about his touch. Only a moment. Then she took a breath and regained her composure, and that moment passed as if it had never come at all. He wished to know her. Had any man ever said such a thing to her? It seemed ridiculous.

And in a way, it scared her. Either Faustus was playing a cruel and dangerous game, or he was a rare sort of man. The sort she might come to like. Andromache looked back toward the river. Did you know Myros? She asked finally, her voice soft. Her verdant streets, the song of her rivers. Or the people; did you see the crowded markets, or the riots at midnight, or the festivals that filled the streets with color?

A princess belongs to her kingdom and to her people, my father always said, She glanced down to where Faustus's paw touched hers. There is nothing more. I am nothing more. But Myros was gone, burned, crumbled to ash and dust and

I am nothing.

He listened.
There was little more to do than that; and possibly little more thatnshe could have wanted from him. The warm breeze tousles the dust-laden fur of his chest.
He didn't know Myros. Not much, not beyond what his father had wanted him to see. He saw the councilmen, his councilmen; Thyestes with his strong jaw and gaze of iron. He saw the clean halls and not the littered alleyways. The oil-light of meeting grounds, the tight grins exchanged.
He didn't know the Myros that she had. But even still, he understood.
You miss your home, his voice has fallen to a gruff whisper. Her eyes travel to their paws, black against blond, and for a fleeting moment his do the same. it's okay to grieve, you know. You don't have to hold up that wall. Not always. Not with everyone.
And nor did he.
You are more than Myros. You can be. Because you are not Myros. You are Andromache.

Her own vulnerability settled over her in a way that felt wrong, a prickling discomfort centered on that single point of contact. His paw felt too warm. Her pulse was strangely unsteady, and she was overcome with the urge to withdraw her own.

She didn't.

Do you miss Florentia? It was the closest she could offer to a lowering of those walls he spoke of. Even this felt unnatural, a sort of curdling in her veins. Andromache felt as if she might be sick. She wondered if he thought of returning, of leaving to find his own way home. She knew in the next moment that she would never ask.

I do.
But he, as he'd come to realize in these past days, was more than Florentia. More than his father, brother, his upbringing; more than a Roman.
For he was not Crispinus.
But perhaps our purpose does not lie in our birthplaces. The Gods must have put us here for a reason, right? he removes himself from her side if only to gesture with an outreach of a slender forelimb. Look at this, kyría mou. This, his gaze wanders from the reeds to the looming oaks that dapple the grasslands. The sun casts the tree bark in a soft orange; the shimmer of late summer cicadasong. This is yours, just as it is mine.

All at once Andromache understood the true danger she faced. It was not the Roman's anger but his warmth, his honeyed words and promises of a new beginning. For a moment she almost believed him. For a moment she almost trusted him.

But how could she? Even her own father had not loved her enough to call her an equal. Andromache stood above common men; a princess, a demigod, the apple of her father's eye and favored by the Fates. Were she a man, she would have been more.

Then we'd best make it something worthwhile, Andromache murmured, smiling, closing off; the moment had passed and they were again on opposite sides of some vast unnameable chasm. She withdrew her paw, determined that she would not think of the way his smile lit all his features to brilliance or the pleasant, practiced roll of Greek on his tongue. We should ask Nikolaos and Euryalos to secure the valley. We'll need to assess our resources and establish trade, but if any passing barbarian can simply take it for themselves, it won't mean much.

last from me <33 ty for the beautiful thread as always ily

She is guarded, and he knows this.
She is hurting; hurting in ways that he himself did not know and could never understand, even as he reached for her now with that boyish part of him that longed for it.
She was not for him to claim. And for some reason, he didn't want to. Not just for some vague obligation, a brother's widow; no, no; she was not to belong to anyone ever again. He found himself smiling back.
Send them on a search of the area, see if anyone lurks, a slow exhale comes from his nostrils. I do know there is a band of coyotes who live somewhere nearby. I met with their leader. S'ari, her name was. Perhaps they could be useful allies.
He drifts through the reeds as they brush his ribs. For one fleeting moment, he looks back. I will not be far.

No thank YOU ily <3

A pause, as their eyes met; her lips parted slightly as if she might speak, and she almost did, caught in the sudden urge to ask that he stay awhile.

It was foolish. So she didn't. Andromache only nodded instead, smiling faintly, but maybe he would see the new warmth in her eyes. She sat for a long while after he left, thinking on what he'd said last. A band of coyotes! Only a soft-hearted fool of a man would think to ally with such simple, lowly creatures.

And maybe that was what she liked about him.