There's still life in the Armageddon

Evie

I dreamt in the sound of your voice

and bathed in the color of your love

Evie's smile is still genuine, but she says nothing more, feeling wooden and uncertain internally. This feels...fruitless. If they are just pretending and small-talking, what does that really achieve? They won't know each other any better for all the social propriety they exude. It makes her feel like a whipped mule, punished for mistakes she wants to atone for, but isn't even given the opportunity to aside from having it dangled in front of her face. She tries to tell herself it's just the hormones talking, but she isn't certain if that holds any water here.

Sitting is a lot harder, and Evie struggles a little gracelessly to the ground beside Maea. Her crossed legs have to splay a little wider for her modest belly, but at least it's not much of a strain. Merely holding the bag would surely be easier on her body, but Evie's pregnancy has been blessedly easy, so she takes the option of actual work instead. Here, too, there are indelible changes - she levitates the bag to herself without thinking, and as she dips her hand in to coat her palm in ash, the wind around them stirs to thread through her fingers to cool any heat she can't handle against her skin. No longer hiding scared the way she had done her entire life.

"Not too bad. Deimos flew me most of the way," she admits, having to snap her tongue against the roof of her mouth when she nearly continues on to say it's because skyboats haven't been agreeing with her, aware that the niceties of small-talk would dictate Maea ask why, even if she didn't care. "I took over the Arcane Academy from Hotaru Kaito recently, and the blessing of cold resistance still stands, so travel - even in Leafchange - is much easier, at least regarding temperature." She tries to be the one to extend a hand beyond the basics of social interaction, leaving herself vulnerable instead of demanding Maea do it. She had done more personal harm to Maea in their youths, though only Amalia and Deimos had ever validated her own suffering playing a large part in why. Evie is still uncertain how much she should believe them given the guilt she carries for it.

Deimos hadn't expanded fully on what he'd told Maea, but Evie spins her wedding ring subtly, self-soothing. "We got married in Flowerbirth. Deimos and I." And because she will never break his confidence on all Amalia had done to him, on how becoming Vi's chosen had changed her irreparably in Evie's own eyes, she knows it must seem...strange.

And The most beautiful thought
Is the fact that I have always loved you