[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/1U4bQ50.png[/img][/center][hr][sub][color=lemonchiffon]Location:[/color] The Sun Temple[/sub][hr][hr]

Tia sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the book in her lap with unseeing eyes. She felt… [i]exhausted[/i]. Bone tired in a way that sleep couldn’t cure. Echoes of the Prince’s voice seemed to reverberate around the room. His cutting accusations. His warnings. His cold, detached pronouncements.

The fire he’d lit still crackled in the hearth. 

Tia felt the weight of every secret she was still keeping press down on her. All the words she didn’t stay were thick in her burning throat. A question circled her mind again and again: [i]why her?[/i]

The Prince, the Queen, the Arch Priest, [i]Aelios[/i]... Why make demands of [i]her?[/i] What could she possibly offer them? Surely they all would’ve had more qualified, or capable, or worthy candidates to see their wills fulfilled. Tia had her talents, it was true… but none seemed adequate to fill the many roles that were now being draped over her shoulders like heavy cloaks, each one only adding to the suffocating weight until she couldn’t breathe, [i]she couldn’t breathe–[/i]

And then her body was not her own. She was dying, but it was not her death. A voice that was not hers whispered anguished words that broke her heart. She knew that voice.

[i][color=lemonchiffon]Ranni.[/color][/i]

The vision was much as it’d been before – the familiar presence of her pupil, commanding every ounce of her attention. And again, there was no blistering heat, no stalking predator that watched her with evaluating eyes.

[i][color=lemonchiffon]It’s not a prophecy.[/color][/i]

When Tia came back to herself, she knew this with sudden clarity. Whatever the vision was, whatever she’d experienced earlier today outside the temple, they weren’t prophecies. But what were they, then? They’d both centered on Ranni… but she’d never had any propensity for mental magic. Like Tia, she’d been a healer. 

A hand reached up to thoughtlessly touch the scars at her throat. [i]The blight[/i]. What changes had it forced upon her?

Something warm trailed along the skin of her cheek. Tia reached up to find it was wet – at some point she’d started crying. She sniffled and wiped the tears away. 

Hers were not the only troubles in the world. And being inadequate was not excuse enough to shirk her duties. Eyes refocusing, she looked over at the bedside table, her note and two visions still laying atop it. She looked back down at the book that held her two remaining visions – the ones that remained unverified. She needed to look into them, before she could take them to the Prince. [i]How?[/i] Tia would… figure that part out. And there was still the matter of the Queen’s letters. 

But first… Ranni. Ranni and Dyna were the closest things to family she had left in this world. Having them back in her life was a privilege Tia didn’t think she’d ever be granted again. And now that they were here… it was Tia’s responsibility to take care of them.

And judging by the vision she’d just had, Ranni was somewhere dark. Tia’s heart clenched at the thought of her pupil’s suffering. Forcing herself up, she quickly put the papers and the book back in the table drawer – messier than she normally kept it, and not carefully folded away, but the drawer shut all the same. She gave one last swipe at her cheeks to make sure she wasn’t crying anymore. It wouldn’t do for them to see her in a state – not when she was the one who should’ve been looking after them. Her throat still burned after her coughing fit. She likely wouldn’t manage any words for some time. But the twins knew her better than anyone else in Dawnhaven. She trusted they’d find ways to understand each other.

Allowing herself one last moment in the dim solitude of her room, Tia readied herself. Then she opened the door –

To find Gadez filling the hallway, hand raised as if to knock, and frame blocking out the flickering light of Aelios’ flame.

[hr]
[sub][color=lemonchiffon]Interaction:[/color] Gadez Paladice [@Dezuel]
[color=lemonchiffon]Mention:[/color] Ranni and Dyna Soleil [@Queen Arya][/sub]