Elara rested her elbows lightly against the table, watching Valeria try—unsuccessfully—to regain her composure. Most would've missed it: the brief hesitation in her breath, the slight tension in her jaw, the careful way her eyes lingered as if caught between caution and curiosity. But Elara saw all of it. She'd been seeing it since the do, when Valeria kept glancing at her with a kind of quiet, uncertain interest that didn't resemble suspicion or calculation, but sothing much gentler.
It felt strange to be observed like that—strange, but not unwelco. Valeria's attention lacked the brittle politeness of nobles or the subtle cruelty woven into court-trained smiles. She looked at Elara the way Elara herself observed others: quietly, precisely, as though trying to understand the edges of sothing she hadn't expected to find.
And that, oddly enough, drew Elara closer rather than pushing her away.
Still, she reminded herself why she was here, why she had chosen this table, why she had initiated conversation in the first place. Valeria Olarion was connected to Lucavion. Selphine and Aurelian had spoken of so old entanglent between them, sothing never explained but heavy enough to echo. Whether it was friendship, rivalry, or sothing stranger, it was a thread Elara couldn't afford to ignore. If she wanted truth—about that night, about what Lucavion had beco—Valeria was her best path to it.
Yet practical use wasn't the only reason she stayed. Against everything she should have learned from her exile, her instincts kept circling back to Valeria with a quiet steadiness. She didn't feel falseness in her. Didn't sense poison, greed, or hidden cruelty. The girl spoke with a simplicity Elara had always found easier to trust than flattery, and for the first ti in a long ti, Elara felt her guard shift, not crumble, but tilt—ever so slightly—toward soone else.
That was why she leaned forward now, letting her chin rest against her knuckles as she asked, "So… what is your exact relationship with him?"
Lucavion.
The na hung in the air like a weight set on a blade's edge. Valeria paused. Not dramatically—just a asured stillness, as though the question had landed sowhere unarmored. Elara didn't press; she simply watched, letting the quiet work for her. If trust was going to happen at all, it needed to grow here, in these seconds where hesitation revealed more than words.
"After everything we all saw at the banquet," she added, her voice softening, "you can't expect not to be curious."
She ant it. And Valeria could see that.
Elara kept her gaze steady—not probing, not demanding, simply open. If Valeria refused, she wouldn't push. She didn't want to resemble Lucavion in the worst ways, pulling truth out of others through force or tension. So she added, with controlled gentleness, "If it's sothing you'd rather not talk about right now, that's fine."
Valeria's eyes t hers then, clearer than before, and sothing sharpened in them. Not hostility or fear—sothing more reflective, as though Elara's sincerity had pressed against a place Valeria kept well-defended. Elara recognized the flicker of calculation as the girl sifted through her own thoughts. She also caught the shadow of another idea—one Valeria didn't voice, but couldn't quite hide.
She's wondering if I was played by him too.
And perhaps whether she was, in her own way.
Elara felt no offense in the thought, only a brief, quiet understanding. The assumption made sense. Anyone who still cared about Lucavion at all might look naïve from the outside. And if Valeria had once stood close to him, then maybe she too was reckoning with old wounds, old misjudgnts, old ghosts.
Valeria sighed softly, a breath that held resignation more than resistance. "My relationship with Lucavion," she said, "is not sothing… interesting."
Elara's brow lifted a fraction. The answer was too neat. Too carefully trimd. Not a lie perhaps, but certainly not the whole truth. She let a faint, patient smile touch her lips—one that didn't push, but didn't retreat either.
"Co on now," she murmured, tone light but perceptive. "Let be the judge of that."
Valeria didn't look away. If anything, her focus intensified. There was sothing steady in her violet eyes—sothing that held a near-recognition, as if she were seeing a kind of uprightness she didn't expect in soone who had once crossed paths with Lucavion. And for a mont, Elara felt that mirrored weight settle between them: the knowledge that both of them had stood in the shadow of the sa unpredictable man and walked away with questions no one else could fully understand.
Elara tapped a finger softly against the table, not impatient, simply thoughtful. "I'm not asking for everything," she said. "Just honesty. Whatever shape that takes."
Sothing eased in Valeria then—not fully, but enough for the lines around her posture to shift. Relief, perhaps. Or acceptance. Or simply the realization that Elara wasn't here to trap her, only to understand.
A mont passed.
Then Valeria drew a slow, quiet breath—one that carried the weight of a door cracking open rather than slamming shut.
"…Alright."
And Elara leaned forward, ready.
Valeria held Elara's gaze for a long mont before admitting, with a quiet exhale, "It's hard to word my relationship with him."
The phrasing—careful, asured—told Elara more than a blunt confession ever could. She tilted her head slightly, neither leaning in nor pulling back, just allowing the clarification to co at its own pace.
"…Why?" she asked.
Valeria's fingers traced the rim of her glass before she answered. "When I t him, it was in the city of Andelheim. We were both attending a martial arts tournant organized by Marquis Vendor."
Andelheim. The na flickered sowhere in Elara's mind like a faint lantern in fog, paired with old briefings from the banquet—Vendor's investigations, whispered rumors of knights and criminals crossing blades, hints about Valeria's involvent there. She humd softly, encouraging without interrupting.
Valeria continued, slower now. "And back then… he sohow appeared there and started pestering ." A faint, almost reluctant shift softened the line of her mouth. "And then I found myself by his side, and eventually, we started spending ti together."
Elara's spoon paused midair. "Spending ti together?"
"Yes." Valeria nodded, the motion small but earnest. "Eating together, wandering around after matches, talking during the breaks. The tournant was large, and the intervals between rounds stretched on for days. And I was alone—no one from my family was with . I was trying to prove myself without relying on the Olarion na, and… perhaps because of that, I sought companionship in a place I didn't know."
Elara watched her closely. Valeria wasn't embellishing, nor was she defending. Everything she said was stated plainly, almost disarmingly so. And yet beneath the calm phrasing lay sothing more tangled.
'So he simply approached her. Inserted himself. Wore down her guard.'
'Yes… that sounds like him.'
But there was no bitterness in Valeria's voice. No anger. No regret. Just the quiet, vulnerable truth of soone who had been young, alone, eager to carve her own path, and unexpectedly found an equal walking beside her.
Sothing in Elara's chest tightened—not jealousy, not fear, but a kind of quiet recognition.
She knew what it was like to et soone in a strange land and mistake proximity for safety. She knew how quickly companionship could blur into sothing heavier. And she knew how easily soone like Lucavion could step into that blurred space.
She didn't interrupt, but inside her thoughts tangled and untangled with a soft ache.
'And you let him close… because he made it easy to forget you were alone.'
'I know that feeling.'
Valeria didn't notice the shift in Elara's eyes; she was still looking past the rim of her cup, sifting through her own mory. "Back then, it felt simple. He was unpredictable, but not dangerous. Annoying, yes. But interesting. And neither of us had much to lose by… spending ti."
Elara inhaled slowly. "So he approached you first."
Valeria's mouth twitched—barely a movent, just enough to suggest a mory brushing too close for comfort. It wasn't amusent. Not entirely. More like sothing she didn't intend to recall had risen to the surface anyway.
"Sothing like that."
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