Elise

Life had definitely taken a weird twist of late, Elise decided. First of all, there was the prisoner of war situation. She was practical enough to know the whys and wherefores of these things, and had gone along without making a fuss. It had been good to see Cal again, regardless of the situation, and Elise was glad of the renewal of friendship, and the two of them had bitched over men, even while Cal had pumped her for information on the Regiment. Not that Elise had given away more than Cal already seemed to know, barring a detail or two that was easily available in any public record. The whole exercise had seemed more about getting Devante to back down than anything else, she mused. She’d seen Shelly a couple of times since the ceasefire too, and the two had taken to rolling their eyes and grinning at one another in passing. A small shared camaraderie, but everything helped, after all, when the two opposing sides had to stand and fight together for Trinsic’s sake.

She’d been to speak to Gwen too, and the two had gossiped the morning away over a mug of tea or two. No need to let Devante know about that little exchange, she thought to herself. After all, she’d never been pleasant to him since they split, and if she started now, he’d get worried. She’d sworn Gwen to secrecy on the matter too, and the girl had vowed to be oh-so-insulted when Elise grumbled about “That bloody elf” within earshot. So far so good on that score then. And then there was Lyim, who had finally managed to haul his scapegrace piratey behind out from wherever he’d been hiding it and be a dad. Wonders, apparently, never ceased. She couldn’t help still being fond of the rogue, though, and she’d even told him as much as she kicked him out the door. So much had slotted into place, it was almost too easy for the latest bombshell to happen, she reasoned.

And there was the crux of it all. Was it really as easy as the rest of her life being in place, or were there some odd twists and turns of fate at work? She sat there over her afternoon tea, leafing through the Poste, paying no particular attention to it, chuckling every now and then as she remembered the past few days, and their silliness, how she’d been tied to a tree as a joke, almost drowned, poked in the ribs enough times that she’d likely have a permanent bruise on the spot, and how she’d been unceremoniously dumped over the back of her own couch last night and landed in an inelegant heap on the floor, then thrown, fully clothed, into her own bath. She sipped her tea, and took a bite of the cookie she’d brought to go with it, and turned her attention to the paper, an expression of contentment on her face as she studied the front page. An observer might have noticed something odd about this silent morning reverie, for every now and then, as the sunlight hit the wall behind her, the shadows appeared to take on the form of a large, serpentine dragon, wrapping protective coils around Elise as she sipped tea and read the paper, oblivious to its presence

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