Chapter Text
Presumably I fell asleep there, but decidedly I woke up when I arrived back in my Palace. I woke falling, with no chair under me nor table under my arms, and had not enough time awake to burst into crow form before I landed with a thud on the floor. A thud, and a clatter as a couple of metal goblets were knocked off the shelves behind me.
I might have panicked, except that I otherwise recognized the room. The new, smaller table was set to my left and somewhat in front of me, with a couple chairs; none of them, alas, where I had been sitting. The goblets must have been right on the edge of the bookshelf blocking the secret door. Probably meant to detect people trying to open it, not people falling out of a chair that was not there.
The door was yanked open by a guard in Damaran colors, and a servant had backed against the wall of the bedroom opposite the door to get out of the way of the guard and his partner. I was in…I was in a borrowed set of servant's clothes, with mother's brooch attached to it as a convenient way to carry it about, on the floor of what I rather thought was my Melissa's (former?) breakfast room.
Kip got to wake up in his own body (albeit with a concussion) when he came back. Why did I get transposed back physically instead, and nearly get a concussion in the process? I was wavering between outrage at that, and nervous relief that I was probably home, when the guard called back, "Davvas, go get the Palace guard. I believe it's him."
And the Palace guard, especially those who had been my close guard, would have devices to test and confirm that. Not the second guard, but the servant against the wall nodded and dashed out. The guard who had spoken came into the room and offered me his hand to get up, searching my face.
I let him help me up, then released his hand and gave him a bow - enjoying the shocked look, still, that I got for doing something so inappropriate for the Emperor I no longer was. "Fitzroy Angursell, once Artorin Damara, at your service. I assume you'd like me to wait for the confirmation? I shall be pleased to do so, if I may use one of the cushioned chairs rather than the floor, while I wait. They look rather more comfortable."
That got a quick bark of a laugh out of him - definitely not trained to the standards of my inner guard - and I moved to one of the seats, turned it to face the doorway directly, and waited.
Melissa arrived before the Palace guard; she must have been somewhere in the suite. She promptly froze in the doorway, staring at the brooch. "Where - are you - you're all right? Where did you get that?"
I made a face. "I went back to the days of Astandalas, though only almost ours, not quite. It's a long story. Mother gave me this, that version of our mother, though - you recognize it?"
"I never saw it until perhaps two years after you took the throne, but then she started wearing it sometimes when we were home - never at court. She said it was just a sentimental keepsake, but never said of what. I've still got it - if it's there - in my jewelry because it reminds me of her. She seemed to love it."
…if you came back whole and well, if you had become someone I could be proud of or hopeful for. I was in the Palace, but I was in a private room in my sister's suite and I was not in Astandalas. I didn't even say anything, I just let my eyes overflow when they insisted.
Melissa looked arrested, and like she might ask; but, both an ally and raised in the Astandalan tradition, she did not. After that first moment, she did not even appear to notice my tears, standing there as quiet and calm as if we were just both waiting.
I'd wiped my eyes before the two of the Palace guard arrived to confirm my identity, only slightly ahead of my Kip, my fanoa, my other half, my promise of home.