Yros

it's been a painful day spent in the crown hall, surrounded by the absolute madness her mother has caused. panicked heralds and margraves dash about, constables rush to try to keep the peace ( whatever that meant, no one was unpeaceful. ) and unnamed members of the court twitter about in some misplaced attempt to catch the eye of the royal. only gemini knows you don't want to catch her mother's attention, not when she's in one of her moods. and though this morning started with a celebration she's under no illusion that it will stay that way. she's not been hollyhock since the abrupt announcement and imagines her poor heiress sister is all but drowning in trying to keep everything afloat.

thank goodness she's the unimportant one.

with her betrothed otherwise busy, and her court's eyes set on the heiress and their mother, gemini is free to do as she pleases. well, mostly.

she's accosted by a handful of strangers, all vying for her attention as if she can somehow help them, lift them into the royal circle. she wants to shake them and tell them to run from it, not try to get closer; but instead she just smiles that frozen, humorless smile and glides her way around their reaching paws. thank the allmother that she's already taken- at least every family in yros has stopped shoving courtships at her.

by the time she makes it beyond the dell, her face aches. she lets her expression fall to something distant and relaxed - lets herself unmask when the world isn't looking her way, when her mother isn't there to snarl a threat should that mask slip.

it's easier to be alone than to suffer the constant headache of pretending you're something you're not.

wearily, she settles not far from the entrance to the dell - just needing a moment to breathe. a moment where there weren't three courts crammed together in a home meant for one, where two of the three hates the other and the majority of them want some kind of your attention, however fake their intentions. a sigh filters past her slender jaws, the heat of it creating a little cloud that briefly warms her face. absently, without thinking, she calls up her thauma -

and it explodes in her face. quite literally.

a shriek of surprise and some pain escapes her as she jerks away from the fireball that had blown up some feet in front of her. her eyes water from the ash that now coats her face and she winces, cursing under her breath as she lifts a hand to scrub at the soot. so much for a quiet moment.

a snickering response - ashe watches with her legs outstretched and a fierce smile on her lips. the little royal's explosion satisfies some part deep in her little heart and she unfurls herself to stroll towards gemini. pale eyes flick across her elegant, tapered body - not a hair out of place. meanwhile, her own coat is ragged and unkept, hanging in clumps that she hasn't groomed in weeks and thick with debris and tangles. she's not the source of her ire, not fully and really - but she's close enough.

her family, her court, her mother - all the cause of her own family's demise. her own family's death ( disappearance? ). and it leaves a sour taste in her mind to even think of the high court. but the festival drew her, a mother to flame, to see what chaos she can sew and what pots she can stir.

imagine her surprise when she finds the heiress' sister, alone outside the court.

her eyes narrow, golden claws flexing against the cold earth and dark muzzle wrinkling back into a bitter smile, all fangs and no humor. "hurt yourself, princess?"