Heidi prompts – Summer Solstice #2

by imperialvirtue

Handing over

As she announces Flora, Heidi admires her former lover as she enters the Glory Square. She is clutching a handful of roses and, when her song begins, Heidi feels entranced by the music and the potent symbols she holds fast.

She presents a rose to Nessa, and then she sings of lust—and looks straight at Heidi. The pink roses surely match the blush in her cheeks, but she can be nothing but flattered. Maria receives her last red rose, and Heidi feels as if she is somehow releasing Flora to her future wife.

It is her honour to do so.

Poem/A poem shared

At Garravaine and Beatrix’s League wedding, she watches Geraint eagerly approach the Earl De Rondelle and Gabriel Barossa, brandishing his poem. She cannot watch, she tells herself—but she does steal one glance their way.

The red cheeks and embarrassed smiles indicate he has concluded his recital. He is so proud, of his poetry and of her. It is a feeling that throbs in her chest and fills her with hope.

She must now prove worthy of him also. She must play her part in his Test tonight, if they are to be virtuously married.

She will not let him down.

The look on his face

Heidi cannot meet his eyes.

If she looks at him, she will see devastation. The terror that anger cannot eclipse, the echoes of her own death behind his blue-grey eyes. The tears on his cheek and the trembling of his lip, a world away from the warrior Earl she knows.

She has reduced him to this. She is supposed to make him strong, make him better, bring him glory. Instead, she has ruined her reputation and their standing within the Nation, within the Empire.

She cannot look into his broken face and know: he still loves her, despite it all.

Seeing Them Together

Heidi keeps half an ear on her conversation with Pietro, but her attention is focussed on them.

The Navarr archer towers over the Dawnish knight, but they are both strong men. They stand a little too close, not quite touching. Their bodies are in tune, like partners preparing to dance—in The Great Dance.

She wants to go over to them, to join their small private circle, but she doesn’t want to intrude. To alert Pietro to the fact something unusual is happening here.

She is watching the rebirth of something exciting and terrifying all at once, and she cannot wait.