"i've always known draconic," she says, but language is a funny thing like that. it's as living and breathing as the people it dwells inside. freya's connection to it had always been secondhand through studies from the morningstars, but father winter had gifted her a lifetime of memories, making it part of her.

"but yeah, you could say that." there is a hint in her tone, a look made to king - she has more to tell him, but not here. not in front of delta.

she rests her chin on the top of the girl's head, covers her hands with her own, and shows her how to make the dragon pliant. they knead with their palms a muscle beside its spine and it thrums, shakes out its neck, and curls up, lashes rluttering closed.

"if you like this one, you should see the other ones, del. once i have them tamed, i'll bring them around. they're not as friendly as this guy right now."

KING WAYLAND

☉

she dips her brows in consternation and tells delta in soft whispers more about the fantastical beasts she bore witness to in area zero. she holds her tongue, though, and opts not to tell her that her dad was down there too. 

"i said once i tame them, thank you. if you're going to get annoyed at what i'm saying, at least listen," she says, a teasing lilt to her voice that'd be vacant quite literally anywhere else. 

"would that be so bad? and besides, not your choice. what do you want to specialize in, del?"

KING WAYLAND

☉

"you mean you don't keep him in check?" she asks delta and gets a variation of the wayland impish smile in return before she leaves the raging bolt behind in lieu of a snack. the dragon opens up one big eye and stares up at her, snorts decisively, and then curls its head away. 

"you'll change your mind one day when you see the draciary," she promises as she follows behind. she's not here for the snacks, but she is there for the company. 

she intends to greedily drink up all she can before he puts her out. 

"it's nothing like the estate, but it's damn well close. i'm even, sort of, teaching." and it feels good. it feels so good, but there is always that missing piece, that pitch black against the sun where he ought to be beside her. it pervades the flushing pride, making her lapse into silence rather than tell him about the people she's met. 

the strides she's taken. 

what if she takes too many without him?

KING WAYLAND

☉

she holds her breath. lets it go. the words won't mean anything to delta (until they do, because the girl's too smart for her own good and honestly, she knows how to get on the internet, freya). 

"mostly members of the amnesty program. we folded in optional volunteer hours with the dragons." she tests the waters and leans a hip into the kitchen island. 

"just a few are learning draconid. only the language. the...i'm not sure if i know the right traditions to teach that. one of them, Caleb Harcourt, is learning combat. don't look at me like that! i learned from the best."

KING WAYLAND

☉

she hasn't told him yet. she hasn't told him about the impossible journeys. meeting her lost cousin. finding and parting with her mother - her real mother. the tumultuous fall through father winter's portal. 

how many strides indeed. 

"no," she says defensively, "not when there are so few draconids left. so few...of us left." she rounds the table and fetches a glass from the cupboard, moving as though she hasn't been missing from the space for weeks on end. 

"i've learned about my birth parents. they were from sootopolis. they were draconids. and the morningstars knew, but they never told me. i still don't know why." she tries to meet his grin halfway, but it doesn't reach her eyes. her expression sours.

"maybe one day i can," she says, more bitterly than she intends. 

KING WAYLAND

☉

at first she thinks he's talking about her barbed rebuttal, but his jest about caleb had been mostly that anyway - a jest. no, he doesn't know what her heritage means, and a whole other lifetime sweeps through her in an instant. she nearly drops the glass, managing to save it at its zenith and only spill a few drops on herself. 

she sits and she thinks fondly back to the time she returned after another year-long journey that had folded into just a few short weeks in this plane. she'd flung herself into his orbit with a sense of reckless finality. 

now here they are again, spinning. 

"i met my birth mother in the border. i saw - i saw artemis there too. and a man came with me. Roy Aker. his mother was waiting for him too." she bites her lip. "i have a family, king. a living family. and there's still so much i don't know about it, but i know the name of my lineage. where i come from.

"and soon after that, before i could make sense of it, father winter visited again." this, she says slowly, carefully. there's only so much she wants to talk about in front of delta. "it was...i was away a lot longer than last time."

KING WAYLAND

☉

it's a question that makes sense, but still it brings a brief flash of pain over her face. it had taken her so long to trust herself after recovering from fernando - her thoughts, her body, her breath, all her own, but still that inkling of but is it you? always remained.

"she was real," she says firmly. "and the morningstars...i think they knew. i think they knew from the beginning who i was, but i don't know why they never told me."

she brings the water to her lips, fingertips pink with taut pressure.

"but winter gave me the life i would have had if she'd been there. not a glimpse, king. a lifetime." her breath rattles; the thick ropes that had bound her together begin to slacken. her arms come around herself for comfort, glass set on the counter.

KING WAYLAND

☉