herald_ingress | PFSB in London Above

The door slams behind Ingress as she strides into Milliways. She hesitates in front of the House of Arch painting, but if she goes there she'll cry and be coddled, and her sister will give her the look that always says "Come home, we'll figure it out, just come back home to us." There is no figuring it out, not even with Tom's help. She was chosen for a reason. She wants to be a Herald. She wants to be with her companion. She wants to be a part of her new world, her true home now. She wants and wants and never stops wanting.

And, oh, tonight, she is tired. Tired to the bone. Tired deep down to her soul.

The last time she came here, she laughed like she had when she was little with her practice sword and tutu, when everything was bright before her and nothing could go wrong. When she went back to Haven, no time had passed; Megwyn asked her why she hadn't gone after all. Ingress hadn't answered right away, and then she'd simply said "I changed my mind" and then changed the subject.

When Megwyn found her here, all those years ago, she had been broken, possibly beyond repair. Door had tried so hard to be everything her sister needed her to be, but she was, Ingress knows now, ridiculously young, and she had Tom to deal with, too, even though he tried his best to fix them both as they stumbled together into life as a family. But Ingress had shattered that day in the greenhouse when the blood rushed out from her mother's throat onto the roses, and she'd been snatched, kicking and screaming, away from her home. She'd broken into more and more and more pieces during her silent captivity; isolated, cold, and in the constant dark with nothing but scuttling spiders for company.

She'd tried to open the door for Islington when he had her brought to him. She'd tried so hard. But she was too little, and the door he wanted was too far away, and when he screamed at her, she'd tried again, tried so hard that her ears hurt and her nose bled, but it still hadn't been enough and back she'd gone into the dark. She was fed irregularly, and, after a while, she stopped crying. She stopped hoping. She stopped feeling anything at all. When Door saved her months later, she had to learn how to be a little sister, how to be loved, how to be Ingress again.

When Megwyn found her, when she chose her as her herald, the bond between them mended the broken parts within her enough that, with all the rest of the love and support from her family and friends, she healed quickly. Ingress came out of the dark that day, for good, in her mind and heart, and she lived and she laughed and she thrived.

But even when you're not broken, life isn't easy. Ingress has the blessing of a companion who is always - and will always be - there for her, but she's as lonely as any single young woman hoping with all her heart for more. Her three week circuit had ended, and she was tired and wounded from a skirmish - nothing terrible, but enough to make her constantly aware of the ache on her left side that kept her from sleeping well. When she got back to her room, her heart full of hope and relief, the message basket beside her door was empty. Cassildra hadn't written. That made two months without word from her, and, what was worse, Mewgyn gently told her no when Ingress asked her to check in with her Companion, Talian, to see if Cassildra was okay. Which meant... which meant Cassildra wasn't going to write her. Ever.

Blast it all, it wasn't as if Ingress had insisted on a betrothal. She was deeply smitten, but she'd tried to play it cool, to not be clingy, as her ex-boyfriend had called her a year before. When Cassildra was posted indefinitely across the kingdom, she'd only had hoped for letters. And for something, maybe one day, more than an empty bed night after night. But that was looking like it would be her fate.

It was hard for Ingress, even still, to fit in as someone from 'out kingdom'. Someone with strange hair and strange eyes and strange gifts who was oh so lovely, and such a gifted fighter, but never quite enough to secure a place in a beloved's heart.

She slumps onto one of the couches near the fireplace. There are times when she wonders if it would be worth opening the door that she keeps tightly shut within herself, the door with thoughts of her sister and her birth world and just what could be fixed and what couldn't behind it.

Or... maybe she'll get really, really drunk and not think about anything for a while, until her wide open heart pains her just a little bit less.

Threaded | Flat

It occurred to Wei Wuxian, as he asked Madam Bar for an instrument stand suitable for both his flute and Lan Zhan's guqin, that Lan Zhan might have been humoring him. Maybe he couldn't think of anything else and only wanted Wei Wuxian to feel useful. He does not even need a stand to play his instrument most of the time. And when would he be playing it in the room, anyway? He has pushed Lan Zhan away so much that he will never play guqin for him again.

He still brought the stand to his room, moving it to a spot immediately visible from the door, but couldn't shake an awful hollowness as he stepped back to study its placement. This means far less than you think it does, he thought. He will probably not even use it.

He is a fool. He should just -- put all this from his mind and forget he even feels this way. Their affection for one another will remain as friends, and that is fine.

It's fine.

He slumps back down to the bar some time later to see about a late afternoon meal -- not so close to dinner that he will spoil his appetite when Lan Zhan arrives -- and spots a familiar flash of blue hair near the couches. He is about to turn away a moment, intending to compose himself a little better before going to greet Lady Ingress, when he takes a closer look to see her expression.

She looks about as miserable as he feels.

Quietly, he approaches. "Ingress?" he asks, clear concern written on his face.

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