•||• You'll never outrun your own past

[sweettalker]

[ Piper had so many questions...! How had it come to this? She hadn't even been gone that long, but to return to Corona after weeks- months -to find Old Corona in ruins... and Varian's father...! Strange black stone everywhere, laying out a path into the distance, and rumors of the mad alchemist who had attacked the royal family- NONE of it made sense, and NONE of it sounded like the earnest boy she'd gotten to know.

She'd had the foresight to secure a horse before enacting this crazy plan. Walking into the kingdom had been the easy part. Getting into the castle's dungeon was marginally more difficult, but getting back OUT was where the real challenge began, one that involved a lot of sneaking and ducking into shadows, out into the village proper and through the back alleys.

Of course he had a hundred questions after what he'd just seen her do! But she reminded him, quiet but urgently that right then wasn't the best time. She'd explain everything when and if they managed to get away without being slapped in irons again.

The alarm was risen not long after when they were halfway through the town and Piper quietly uttered a curse in Greek under her breath that Varian may or may not have heard. Only then did Piper dare to put any real urgency in their step, bringing him all the way to the edge of town where the stable and her steed waited.

Wait there, she'd instructed him, disheveling her own hair before approaching the tense guards, pretending to be out of her breath and scared out of her wits as she stepped into the moonlight. No one was to come in or go out through the kingdom gates.

"I need help!" She'd pleaded, so convincingly terrified that their grip on their swords had tightened, Piper feeding into their suspicions and tensions, rather than trying to convince them to stand down. She'd come to tell them she'd just been startled a big, hulking, shadowy figure running for the armory!

Probably looking for weapons to fight their way out, the guards figured, and from there it was incredibly easy to convince them that it would take BOTH of them to bring the suspect down. It was what they were expecting to hear, after all.

The breakneck horseback ride through the gate and across the bridge was silent except for the clopping of hooves on cobblestone and then dirt roads. Piper's heart was pounding in her chest, trying not to think about the fact that she'd just effectively made herself a wanted criminal in the HEART of the kingdom. The only thing she cared about then was getting the two of them to safety, and so they rode, not stopping until her horse's breathing had become labored and Piper was assured that they had managed to stop leaving a trail of tracks. The black rocks were good for SOMETHING, at least, or so she thought to herself once they'd crossed beyond the walls of the kingdom.

Under the cover of a dark canopy she coaxed the horse to come to a stop, dismounting and turning to see if Varian needed any help down, head still spinning. ]

We... we should be alright now. I don't think they'll be able to find our trail now. [ Her eyes sought him out in the darkness. Whatever color he'd seen them as before, now they shifted with her restless and agitated emotional and mental state. Brown to green to blue, and every shade in between, brown with green flecks, steely gray. No point in hiding it now, not if they were going to be honest with one another, and she hoped very much that they would, now. ]

Varian...

Comments

[sonrises]

[It was a wild mix of emotions that Varian had felt when Piper had rescued him, and confusion was chief among them. How had she gotten to him? And why? As much faith as he'd once had in Piper, it had become so hard to have faith in anyone... And he'd honestly assumed she would turn away from him, like everyone else had. Everything else was secondary to that - the excitement and fear and stress and, from that small part of him that could see where he'd played a role in all of this, shame.

As the adrenaline from their escape wore off, many of these emotions had slipped away, too, until he just felt numb again. Well, numb and curious, because even trauma couldn't change him entirely. He had so many questions for her - now more than ever.

He was reluctant to meet her eyes at first, and when he did, he was sure his own vision was playing tricks on him. It didn't stick long, though, because the way she said his name... He could only imagine, in his current state, what she'd have to say. Had she just freed him to tell him how wrong he was? How badly he'd messed up?

It spoke to how his care for Piper was still present, despite everything, that he couldn't bring himself to lash out. The one person he couldn't do that to, now. He just looked back down.]

Look, I don't want to talk about it. I'm sure you heard what happened.