[she doesn't know that the world is turning just for her]

skill: [none]

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Euphemia listened with something akin to childlike terror as Archon went into the details of the rupturing of his relationship. Euphemia did have an appreciation for the macabre, for it provided much information for her analytical mind to churn over and spit out. She loved to chew the details of a thing and absorb it into her very being. It was because of this that Euphemia felt her emotions very deeply, and loved even more profoundly; for how could she not marvel at the art of imperfection, which existed in nearly every corner (if she looked hard enough)?

He said he didn’t know, and Euphemia doubted that greatly. She thought it was more likely that he didn’t want to say – and, of course, it left the maiden with far more questions than it answered. She hadn’t known the details of why her mother and father also ended their prolific love story either, and somewhere in the recesses of her mind, a whisper spoke of a burgeoning belief that heartbreak was inevitable in every relationship one would find themselves in. To be alive, was to suffer.

Not that suffering was entirely a bad thing. It kept life from being boring, and Euphemia watched life like a most delicious telenovela. and this was how she regarded Archon’s story of failed love; without being given the gruesome details, it felt like a scary movie that she enjoyed as much as she loathed. Perhaps love here had failed, but maybe it was still beautiful and valuable and worthy because it had existed at all. In a world where nothing was permanent, that’s all one could possibly hope for.

Wasn’t it?

She found herself jealous, insides beginning to simmer with the heat of a dream unrealized. When would it be her turn to be heartbroken? When would she get to feel such passions, and weep such tears? When would her struggles with Dawnbreak would initiate her into new struggles of life and love and loss, like it had with Dalmatia and Tiberii and Golde and Archon?

Before she knew it, Archon was talking about why he had left Frostfang Vale in the first place, of his children and their mistreatment, and Euphemia had to force her attention to point in one direction, towards Archon, who was speaking of his own many pains and woes. The silvered maiden kitted her eyebrows together in concern, looking towards her brother with compassion. It came to her easily, once she stopped being so in-her-own-head.

That’s okay Archon, you’ve gotta keep them safe. she spoke softly, as if Archon was made of fine china, and her words were the velvet cloth that enveloped it and kept it safe. I still would love to meet them, she said as she maintained her calm composure, but she felt it was amazing that she had nieces and nephews, whom (prior to now) she had no idea existed. So, she did have family outside of Dawnbreak. For some, Frostfang Vale was not the place they were destined to pass the rest of their days, simply because they carried the Shakti-Vaes name.

With all of these realizations, Euphemia could not reflect her brother’s sadness. It’s amazing that you are a father, she noted with earnest, and it was all she could do the stifle the forlorn sigh that lay so shallow in her throat, so ready to be uttered. I don’t care what happened afterwards. You’ve made babies, and that’s just… She looked at Archon, her expression full of eternal longing and unexpressed, unmanifest desire. I haven’t even had my first kiss. Whatever was left of her smile slipped off her maw, a bit surprised that she dare say such a thing.

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