Words escape her, but the thoughts don’t stop. She curses her existence at the turn of events. Her life upside down, she lifts herself with each footstep, trudging up the stares; she does it slowly as if she is leaving her fate ahead of her, behind her and down the stares. At the top of the stares, she looks out briefly through the window, but gives it no attention. She passes the first door, also not giving it much attention; it is the family shower, and she has no interest in it - at least not yet. Instead, she slowly walks to her room, her mood changing, slightly. She sees the familiar door, closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and slowly opens it as she exhales; she walks in and lets the door behind her close. She focuses her attention on her surroundings and then her bed. She slowly trudges towards it and lets herself fall forward. Her faces reaches the pillow and then the tears usher forth. She knows it is unavoidable, but chooses to let it work its way out of her system. After several upsets, the final stream ends and her lip ends it with a quiver; still on her bed, she sets herself upright to a setting position and focuses her attention with her eyes closed, to the ground. She makes every attempt to regain her composure and control her mood.
“Well that was quick.”
Her body flinches as she turns her head towards the open window. A small blue and green figure floats their hovering, its wings flapping every so often. Despite the blurry vision from her upset tears, she recognizes the figure and voice.
“Little, sprite!” She says it in a low tone of contempt; she pulls her lips into a frown and narrows her eyes at the sprite.
He flutters in and deliberately spins around her head slowly and assumes a position the opposite of her head, which makes a poor attempt to track him. Her head finally turns back to her left and she locks eyes with him, just under two feet from her face. Her expression changes to something more relaxed as her eyes close again; she looks away from him a look of guilt and yielding humility to him.
“It’s good to see a friend.”
He crosses his arms as his wings start to beat repeatedly; he bobs up and down slowly as he does so. “You’re the one that didn’t want me to come with!”
His wings stop beating as he hovers in place; he throws his right hand towards the ground and leans forward as his voice changes in pitch. “Sweiza, I mean it! Don’t you ignore me again, or I’ll fly back out that window!”
She turns her head towards him again; again the two of them lock eyes about two feet apart. She gives a fake, but apologetic smile.
“I’m really happy you waited for me Dewey.”
His arms cross one more time as he twitches his right lip at her and turns his head away. Both eyes are closed, but he slowly opens one eye and casually turns his head slightly, pretending not to notice her or her mood.
“Yeah, well. There was nothing to do…” His head turns towards her again, “…and it’s hard to find any good food in this village.”
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She looks at him in disbelief, “You mean any food that they weren’t watching for any would be thieves!”
He lets out a “hmph!” and crosses his arms and cocks his head away from her again, “If someone had stuck around, I wouldn’t need to steal anything!”
He feels a finger poke him from the back. He flinches and cocks his body around at her. She sees a small light shimmer from his hand as it shoots towards her and disappears.
“And another thing…!” He throws his hand to the ground again.
Both of them turn their head abruptly to the door as it slowly opens. Both her mother and father are standing there; however, she notices there is someone slightly taller behind them. She recognizes the light blond hair. She feels her body tighten as it tries to pull away from the perceived threat.
“Sweiza.” Her father grabs her attention, “Lady Strife would like to speak with you when you are free.”
“I’m busy right now.” She says it without hesitation.
“As you wish Ms. Serif.” Strife bows her head slowly and thoughtfully, before turning towards the stairs. Sweiza sees her mother, and then father disappear from the door. She hears them speaking amongst themselves, but it slowly fades to nothing.
“Sweiza, who was that?” He looks over at her curiously. Before she can answer, he perks her with another question, “Why was she wearing Valkyrie armor?”
He zigs and zags away from her, and settles several feet in front of her, and he once again speaks before she can answer. “Why are -you- wearing Valkyrie armor? Are you crazy?!”
She sits up from the bed and casually walks towards him as if nothing is bothering her. He knows what is coming next and narrowly dodges her gauntlet as she attempts to swat him out of the way.
“Not funny, ‘Ms. Serif’.” He bobs up and down repeatedly as he crosses his arms in his new position two feet from her left ear.
She turns around and slightly walks away from him, “I -didn’t- choose this!”
She turns around and points her left finger at him, “That woman, made me! She’s the one that made me do this!”
She turns her attention and left finger to the door. She turns back to the sprite and pulls a determined frown at him.
“Okay, okay, I believe you.” He hovers in front of her, bobs once and then zips back and forth before hovering in front of her again.
The gesture gets met with approval, “Thank you sprite.”
He then crosses his arms and supports his mouth with his right hand.
“But there is still the matter of why you were gone for two weeks.” He darts from his current position to a few inches from her face, “Did you have an adventure?”
She looks down and slightly away, “Something like that.”
He casually flies into her field of view, “Tell me, I want to know!”
Her eyes look down at him; she resists the urge to boil over at him. She turns her attention towards the door, “Later.”
She starts walking towards the door; the sprite follows her. He jolts to a stop when she stops and cocks her head slightly to her left.
“I wreak of swamp, I want a shower… badly. Don’t follow me.”
He respects his friend’s wishes as she heads towards the door. He sees an odd sight as her armor disappears and her Fertility Festival clothing reappears. This perks his interest, but he chooses to bite his tongue. Despite wanting to help his friend, he knows full well from her mood she wants to be left alone. The only thing he can do now is wait.
Suddenly, his head turns towards the door and he slowly flies towards it while flapping his wings. He stops just outside the door. His wings begin to flutter furiously.
“Did you at least bring back any food?” He says it with an eager of enthusiasm.
His head jolts back at the resounding, “NO!”
“It was just a question. Sheesh.” He mutters it to no one present and flies over to the bed. He lands, yawns while stretching, lies down and curls up on his left side. He looks up one last time and out through the window up to the moon of Lokul. He soon finds himself asleep and in the land of dreams.