It has been months since Alexandrie has been home. Not home, the apartment in Kirkwall, or home, the estate she all but lives at now with Loki, but home. In other days, they would be preparing to go to join the Empress and the rest of the court at Halamshiral soon. The Comte and Comtesse de la Fontaine still are of course, as is her brother Matthias and his wife, their two children, but that preparation is one that Alexandrie will miss this year.
She wanders the mansion she grew up in, its grounds, in a dreamlike state. Here the tree she had leapt from in an attempt to break her own ankle once Evie had broken hers; here the molding on the wall she had measured her height against when she still grew. Here where she had written letters containing all of her young and foolish heart, here where she had learned to sing, to play the piano forte. Here where she had wept, had learned to lie. It hadn't been so long, but it felt like forever all the same. Felt like a gulf that could no longer be bridged, the other side only viewable from afar, never tread again.
Then there were the gardens. How many hours had she spent within their paths? And how many with him?
It's still there, the old oak with its sturdy branches, with the swing she'd clapped delightedly for the hanging of. The numerous tosses of its ropes over the branch it hangs from, most of them for her amusement. Sitting there now, her hands finding purchase on those ropes amidst the climbing rose vines that twine around them, their petals dropped for the coming of winter, she can feel the tingle of hands on her back, often more gentle than she could allow herself to think on.
She will sit for a while there, eminently findable. And then she'll kick off with more energy, a kind of determination to leave the ground behind. To finally touch her feet to the leaves, or to the sky, her skirts fluttering with the movement.
open; the de la fontaine estate
She wanders the mansion she grew up in, its grounds, in a dreamlike state. Here the tree she had leapt from in an attempt to break her own ankle once Evie had broken hers; here the molding on the wall she had measured her height against when she still grew. Here where she had written letters containing all of her young and foolish heart, here where she had learned to sing, to play the piano forte. Here where she had wept, had learned to lie. It hadn't been so long, but it felt like forever all the same. Felt like a gulf that could no longer be bridged, the other side only viewable from afar, never tread again.
Then there were the gardens. How many hours had she spent within their paths? And how many with him?
It's still there, the old oak with its sturdy branches, with the swing she'd clapped delightedly for the hanging of. The numerous tosses of its ropes over the branch it hangs from, most of them for her amusement. Sitting there now, her hands finding purchase on those ropes amidst the climbing rose vines that twine around them, their petals dropped for the coming of winter, she can feel the tingle of hands on her back, often more gentle than she could allow herself to think on.
She will sit for a while there, eminently findable. And then she'll kick off with more energy, a kind of determination to leave the ground behind. To finally touch her feet to the leaves, or to the sky, her skirts fluttering with the movement.