Lyra brushed away the invisible creases in her bedsheets, then stepped back to observe the tidiness of her bedroom. While it was utilitarian in its purpose, the task was easy enough to prompt her mind and body to act against her heart's heaviness. She chose not to shut the curtains, allowing the ghyude to seek refuge in the beams curled beneath her window sill. 

It was the least she could offer them for reliving such a ghastly sight at her behest.

Her blue skirts, sown with the rolling white foam of waves at the hem, whorled around her ankles as she walked to the door and stepped out into the hallway. The door clicked shut behind her, and she let out a light sigh with her back pressed to it. In the hallway's dim, Lyra gathered herself and pulled upon her lips until they'd settle into the familiar cradle of a placid smile. While it would not be enough to fool her elders, Damiano would be appeased to see her in seemingly good spirits.

Her tender-hearted brother would fall over himself in worry if concern showed itself upon her face, and Lyra refused to give the boy another fright. 

After her resolve solidifed, Lyra took a small step forward then turned and made her way down the hall. She avoided the looser woodplanks with lighter steps on the tips of her toes, smiling at the commotion coming from the room neighboring hers. Damiano's voice was muffled by the door but Lyra could almost make out his grumbling huffs over the rustle of cloth as he searched through his bedroom for proper, matching clothes. Lyra could imagine the strict criteria he alloted himself, wishing to show off while also appearing unaffected. 

Rhea and Damiano were very similar in that way. And while the thought did curl the corner of Lyra's lips, it soured almost immediately. She bit down on the inside of her lip to keep from sighing once more, shaking her head as she continued down the hall. Her parents' bedroom was empty, evident from the lack of aether and their presence resonating from downstairs, closely intertwined as they often were. Lyra slowed her steps as she descended the stairs to give them a moment to untangle themselves from one another.

Upon entering the kitchen, Lyra found her mother, Abigail, at the table leafing through a familiar tome while her father, Vaughn, turned to greet her from the stove with his eyeglasses perched at the tip of his nose. Lyra flicked her eyes over Vaughn's face, and the rumpled furl of his collar. His shoulders tensed, eyes widened briefly before he turned slightly to push back his spectacles and smooth out the wrinkles in his collar. Laughter bubbled up in Lyra's chest and she smothered it with tightly clamped lips, sneaking a glance in Abigail's direction.

Not a single hair or thread was out of place on her person and thankfully, Lyra could not see a single blue vein upon Abigail and her skin regained its bronze richness instead of the strange deathly pallor that clung to her.

Her mother's fingers hesitated on the curl of another page, and the subtle rise of her gaze sent a startled current through Lyra who retreated to observing Vaughn's flustered self. Once her father calmed and straightened himself to the point he deemed presentable, he offered Lyra a warm, bashful smile and opened his arms. 

"Good morning, Lyra," he greeted her, and Lyra tried to measure her footsteps to avoid feeling as if she were a little girl seeking comfort in her father's embrace.  

Yet, Vaughn's hugs hadn't changed a whit from her girlhood. He squeezed tightly around the middle of her back, whiskered kisses brushed against her head from his beard grazing her skin with a pleasant scratchiness that pulled her laughter free. While Lyra giggled, peering up at her father, he smiled down at her as if she were the dearest thing in the world. 

Lyra choked back the warmth in her throat and clutched at the back of his shirt, tucking her head against his shoulder. "Are you feeling alright, Papa?"

"More than," her father reassured, giving her another squeeze before loosening his hold to look at her. "Worry not, your mother made certain a barge will not come."

Lyra swallowed dryly around the lump in her throat at the mention of her mother. While Abigail seemed to have healed from her flight the night before, there was still question as to why her behavior manifested itself to begin with. 

Lyra drew her hands to her father's sides, pressing her palms against the warmth radiating from beneath his thin tunic. While it had been years since she needed such support, and her understanding of her mother's peculiarites had grown, there was still apprehension. Slowly, she lifted her eyes to where her mother sat, engrossed in her tome with a composure that seated the nerves within Lyra's stomach. Perhaps it was childish but she was grateful to see her mother's typical mannerisms after such an upending evening. 

Abigail turned another page in her tome, chin resting on curled knuckles as her eyes scoured the page. "Come and sit," she instructed, and Lyra curled her fingers against her father's side at the suddenness of her mother's voice, wrinkling his tunic in her tight grasp. The invitation was undoubtedly directed to herself. Her mother's perception wouldn't have allowed her to ignore wanton staring for too long without notice. 

Vaughn's arms unraveled from her person, though not without a gentle squeeze to her shoulder. She glanced up at him and offered a small smile of her own before bowing her head. "Yes, Mama," Lyra responded, taking in her mother's appearance a little closer as she went over and took the seat across from her. 

At a closer inspection, Abigail did appear better than the night before. Her hair regained its springiness, dense corkscrew curls pulled into a high ponytail where the excess spilled down the sides of her face and swayed in the gentle breeze from the lunette window overlooking their dining table. She brushed a curl out of her eyes, allowing Lyra a closer look at her sclera and she felt relief that they were no longer breaking with lavender-blue veins interwoven as a spider's web. While it was difficult for her to see her mother's iris with her lowered gaze, the ring around them glowed in the shade of her sweeping eyelashes.  

Once she was satisfied, Lyra propped her elbow on the table and tucked her chin against the heel of her hand. "You appear well," she said. The clatter of dishes drew her attention briefly to Vaughn who was in the midst of tending to a kettle upon the stove. He reached up into the cupboards, gently humming to himself as he pulled down a pair of teacups. 

"And you appear troubled." The smile that'd begun to curl Lyra's lips faltered as she looked back to her mother, and tensed as their eyes met. Her mother held her gaze, head tilted slightly and eyes half-lidded. "What ails you, daughter?"

Lyra blinked slowly. Her mother's stare made it difficult for words to arise, and try as she might to grasp the eloquence she knew was there, it all paled. Recollections of the earlier morning's revelations, Damiano's distress from the night before, Rhea's return, the immenince of Aethelu's Parting, how was she to speak of these things so abruptly? With her hands hidden from her mother's view, Lyra twisted her fingers around and squeezed as they interlocked at the middle joint, feeling the numbness spread from the tip of her fingers. Silence lingered between them, but her mother showed no sign of relenting in her ask, only shifting her posture slightly with her elbows resting on the chair's armrest. 

A curl of grey steam colored the air and temporarily obscured Lyra's periphery, giving her a start as the smell of spiced apples pricked her nose. The light clink of earthenware brought her attention to the table where a saucer laden with a cup and paired apple slices set before her.  

"Lyra," her father intoned as he laid another setting in front of her mother, with great care not to disturb the liquid within lest it stain the pages of her abandoned tome. He pivoted himself to stand behind her mother, laying a hand on her shoulder with a tender look at her before turning the same affection unto Lyra herself. "You are... in a precarious position of great importance, but that does not mean you cannot rely upon us."

Abigail closed her eyes in the midst of Vaughn's speech, and wrapped her fingers around the handle of her teacup. She took a generous sip of it while Vaughn continued to speak, "No matter what you become, you will always be our daughter."

Lyra released the pressure on her fingers and looked between her parents' faces. Her father tilted his chin down and observed his wife from the corner of his eye, fingers resting lightly over her shoulder. When Abigail finished her drink and laid the cup down, she opened her eyes and tipped her head back to regard him in return. The barest curl of her lips widened Vaughn's eyes, and Lyra could practically see the moment her father melted, embracing his wife with one hand on each of her shoulders and a kiss to her forehead. Her mother chuckled, a low and throaty sound that fluttered Lyra's stomach. 

Bearing witness to her parents' doting of one another was a constant reminder of how their love transcended words. While it might have been mundane, even the passage of a cup of tea was a declaration of love between them. For her father to extend such words, and her mother's lack of refutation, it could only mean sincerity. 

Lyra looked down and stroked the rim of her teacup, watching her reflection in the liquid's still surface.  "I.. I know. You're right, Papa." 

She gathered her breath, letting her gaze linger on the silent display of affection for a beat longer before her voice broke the silence. "Mama, Damiano's practice was not as juvenile as you spoke of it," Lyra stated, drawing her parents' attention to her once more. Vaughn glanced between her and Abigail, gaze lingering on his wife for a beat longer, bemused. While her mother observed her, unperturbed as if she'd expected the admonishment. In truth, Lyra wasn't certain what upset her more. 

"He believed you abandoned him in the forest, and turned to the leys to find you. What if he ventured too far losing himself in the aether?"

Her mother was quiet for some time, and though her eyes remained upon Lyra, her mind seemed elsewhere. "Hm," her mother hummed aloud, folding her hands at her stomach with a sidelong glance toward the doorway leading up to the stairs. "I will offer my apologies to him once time permits; your father discussed proper measures of honing his abilities." 

Lyra blinked, giving her father a wondering stare. He met her eyes and nodded, withdrawing his hands from his wife's shoulders as she spoke, "You're a dutiful sister, Lyra, and I do admire that of you. But you are a atrocious deceiver." 

Lyra's stomach swooped low, and she sat higher in her chair with her fingers curled tightly around her cup. "What?"

Her mother waved her hand dismissively. "While I don't doubt your concern for Damiano, his plight is not wholly what you've enthralled yourself with."

"I..." Lyra faltered, brows knitted. How could she have known that? No, what did she know? And how could she so plainly accuse her of deception? 

"Abigail," Vaughn stated, cutting through the rising tension between mother and daughter. Both looked up to him, and though a lesser man might have withered, he stood tall and glanced between them with his gaze settling upon his wife with something Lyra could not quite place in his eyes. After a long moment, he bowed his head slightly, and the smile on his lips seemed to share the energy of its usual warmth with something else.  "I'll see what Damiano is getting up to. If you both would like more tea, it is on the stove." 

With that, he turned away and soon vanished from sight as he through the doorway and up the stairs. Once they were alone, Lyra let out a sigh and glanced at Abigail who stared at where Vaughn once stood contemplatively. She closed her eyes, then picked up her cup and Lyra followed suit, the spiced apple flavor tingling on her tongue with a sweetness that tempered the bitterness from her mother's words. 

In a measured voice, much gentler than before, Abigail murmured half into her cup,  "A caravan of mortals, bearing the armorial crest of Chiaroscuro. Wielders of aether, bow, bone, and iron, led by a single man. Horses used as beasts of burden and settled upon our borders for a single moon. Did you know of this?"

"Not until the early morn, no," Lyra replied, nursing the cup between her palms as if it would warm her as she remembered the look of those soldiers. The ghyude's warning to fear their light.  "Their sidereal bodies were.. violated."

"Violated?" Her mother echoed back, and Lyra lowered her eyes, shuddering in spite of herself.

"The alignment was wrong. It seemed as if something from them was removed, and they were unnatural," Lyra's voice lowered to a whisper as if she were once again in the forest watching those apparitions. Her mother did not urge her to speak louder and listened dutifully. "Their existence shouldn't be possible, not with the way the leys withered in their presence, or how the spirits feared them and the aether..."

Lyra hesitated then, swallowing thickly, her shoulders curled in slightly. A hand enveloped her wrist and she realized that she must have been shaking, glancing up to her mother who held her steady. Slowly, Lyra lowered her cup and turned her hand over to hold her mother's, gently pressing their palms together as she searched for the words.

"It vanished into the chasm like.. like wood fed to a fire. Yet, it gave no heat. No life," she uttered the last word breathlessly, realizing why the ghyude who watched over all things from birth to death were terrified. She squeezed her mother's hand. "You are certain they are mortal?"

Abigail sighed, "I'm certain they were mortals."

When she said no more, Lyra's brows furrowed.  "And?"

".. And what?" Her mother answered, arching a brow. "I fashioned there was far more for you to tell than I. Surely you haven't forgotten, the night they appeared on our lands, your knightling returned."

So close to her, Lyra knew her mother caught the way she flinched. However, derision did not color her eyes, only curiosity. "Rhea.. did tell me she returned for a purpose, and she assured no harm would come to us. She wasn't sure why she had to return and.."

"And I'm sure you believe her."

A hollowness pierced Lyra's stomach and she pulled her hand from her mother's grasp, hesitating then cradling her hand to her chest. She knew how ridiculous it appeared. Her heart had cast its doubts upon Rhea, true, but hearing the words from another felt blasphemous. Abigail withdrew to her side of the table, and Lyra heard the clink of her cup in its rise and return to the saucer. 

"I won't ask for your forgiveness, daughter, but a word of caution. Who is it you are placing your faith in? The woman who has returned to your arms, or one buried in years gone."