A Heart's a Heavy Burden (2)
cleaning day – hearth and home – ring the doorbell – a silver tree – castle-top – the forge – another accord – taking account – responsibilities – amber in sunlight – things unsaid
Vex wakes up to a beam of sunlight slicing across her face from a crack in the curtains, and she groans and buries her head under the pillow to escape the offending ray. Her mind creaks into gear, and a few moments later she shoots upright, propped on her hands. “What the fuck was that?” she asks the headboard.
The dark, polished wood has no answer for her.
She finishes sitting up, folding her legs under her. Combing her fingers through the remnants of her braid, she starts untangling her hair. She feels relatively well-rested in spite of that absolutely miserable spell in the middle of the night. The dream still nags at her, but… While she’s no stranger to nightmares, that one felt different. It was vivid in in a way her bad dreams never are—she can recall it like a memory, rather than a fading illusion.
Yet another problem out of her control, another mystery for which she can only wait to see if the next clue presents itself. Hair now loose around her shoulders, she slides out of bed. She’d slept in the same clothes again, too tired to change the night before, and she regrets it now. She feels disgusting, grimy from hiking and sticky from the cold sweat she’d woken in earlier.
There’s another door in this room that she’d somehow missed in her investigation the night before, and to her relief there’s a washroom on the other side of it. She takes the first proper bath she’s had since leaving Syngorn, and leaves the washroom feeling like a brand-new woman in clean clothes. After putting her hair in a fresh braid, she goes to rustle up some breakfast.
