A Court of Fire and Shadows.

chapter six.

Azriel immediately separates from the woman, and Elena slips on that cool mask of hers, the mask of calm, of not caring. She didn't know why she cared, why she expected better, why she craved better. Why she dared to. But she knows she shouldn't, so she pushes the feeling down, and down, and down. Telling herself to forget it.

"I was hoping to get at least a moments rest after saving your sorry asses, but apparently not. A thank you, would be nice, instead of the sight of you two pawing at each other," she says, her lips tilting into a frown, her clothes stained with blood. Azriel's cheeks flushing, as he ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up slightly, the woman sneering slightly at the sight of Elena.

"Oh no, do continue. I'm sure the rest of your little gang will just love that," she says, giving them a sweet smile, her voice brittle. Not allowing either of them to speak before she was gone, walking towards the forest a little ways away, trying to keep her shoulders from caving in from the heavy exhaustion that threatened to drown her, to pull her under. She'd used too much, too fast. Her father had warned her about this, as had her mother, about getting too close to a burnout.

But the thing is, she hadn't even felt the bottom. She'd decimated an entire army, and with an hour or so's rest, she could do it again. A bit slower, to not actually burn up from the inside, as her mother had once come so close to doing so, that night in Mistward. And she didn't have a Rowan Whitethorn to carry her from bathtub to bathtub, to freeze the water she sat in. So she had to be careful. She had to be better.

She walked for a short while, her Fae ears picking up the gentle noise of a nearby stream. Directing her stride towards it, where she sat down and began taking off her armor, then her boots. Continuing on until she was in a plain white cotton shirt, deciding to leave it on lest someone comes looking for her. Kneeling down beside the stream and drinking as much as her body would allow her. Straightening when she senses someone walking up behind her, her back to them. Azriel.

"Are you two done?" She asks, still not turning around, aware of his eyes on her, on the way her shirt's sticking to her skin. The faint outline of long scars running horizontally across her back visible from the sweat sticking the shirt to her body, but she turns to face him before he can get a better look. 

She begins to out her armor back on, feeling too exposed with him there, too vulnerable with those eyes of his focused on her. Putting all her armor back on, standing before looking him up and down. Walking past him, an uninterested look on her face. But Azriel's face was a sheet of confusion, thoughtfulness.

But she doesn't give him a chance to speak, she just walks past him, blowing him a kiss. Back up to that damned house, where the rest of the Inner Circle would no doubt be waiting.  She was so, so tired. But she carries on walking, doing her best to ignore the male at her side, and to keep up with his long strides. She just had  to inherit her mothers height.  

A few minutes later they were at the door, and she doesn't wait for him to say anything before pushing it open and stepping inside, suddenly very aware of the thick black blood coating her, and the mess of her hair. But she doesn't touch it, doesn't fiddle. Just stays completely still as all conversation within the house comes to a halt as the door hits the wall. Raising an eyebrow at the men and women standing in the middle of the room.

"That's it? I was expecting a bit more, maybe a round of applause..." She says, shaking her head sadly.. 

"What are you?" Morrigan asked her, the woman's face hard, her cheek streaked with blood.

"I am Wind, and Rain. And Bone, and Dust, and Fire. I am whatever you want to call me, Dear Morrigan, but above all that, I am tired.  And I smell like shit. And so do all of you, so if you'll excuse me, I'm going to either find a room down in that city of yours," She turns to look at Rhysand, "unless there's a vacancy in here that will save me the walk."