"She always will be, but..." she tilted her head, the soft perk of her attention lilting towards the way his smile failed to ensue the bliss of something... neutral. Did he still like her after all? It was hard to imagine him taking a fondness to anything, though she would admit that perhaps such things were lost to the ebb and flow of her precarious past. "She's forgotten about me by now." The words were spoken softer, without the confidence she had come to know of him. This wasn't a hard, pointed observation or order. At least not from her point of view. She would give him a warm simper, encouragement. "Maybe she hasn't." She would offer as what she hoped was soothing. A slight hum would leave her chest, a warm sound, "Though.... the desert is a long ways away. I would be more than happy to go with you again! Maybe she's just waiting for you to come back."

However, the expression soon wilted and died in the face of Khalila. In the presence of that ominous fog that enshrouded her recollections, a beast she was unwilling to provoke least it swallow her whole. There was familiarity with that thought as well, a cold sweat that threatened to cascade upon her skin. She knew the way its savage teeth would rend and tear, just as much or more so than the ominous threads of the doctor's magic. She would try to push it away, to shove it from her, and yet it was relentless.

She thought she would drown in it, that horrible ink ocean that stole her breath. It poured in suffocating waves into her lungs until she felt as though she could no longer breathe. There was pain, a phantom sensation that seared her, a stake, a rusted bolt being driven through her temple with the ruthless ferocity of a craven monster. She shut her eyes tightly. Smoke. Smoke and fire. Cruelty. Betrayal. One that had cost more than she could have ever fathomed. 'You've done well, Khalila, however... you will never be one of us.' The scene was distorted, blurred and frayed like distressed cloth. Through the haze, however. Was you. The you she now had a name for. Khalila. But why? Why did you...

It was the glissade of his touch that drew her from the fervid claim of what felt like a fever dream. Her eyes blinked rapidly as if to clear them, but her vision was clarion in the present. Though it was filled with the sight of him. He was a mere breath away. It was easy to inhale the soft scent of sandalwood that clung to his clothes. The more intimate hint of his very skin. She could feel his soft exhale on her own and the sensation sent a resounding reverberation through her bodice. It made her skin prick with gooseflesh as the already rosen flush of her face deepened still to a garish carmine.

However, soon, distance prevailed, but it didn't stop her thoughts from their dizzying cyclone. She brought a hand to her temple, releasing the breath she didn't know she'd been holding. He withdrew completely, reclining into the opposite door. "No." She didn't feel... as surprised as she should have by that revelation. However, it didn't stop the color from draining from her. She watched him palm his head. "You were never sick." Again, came that horrible sensation of dangerous recollection. Even the part of her that yearned to once again be whole shied away from what he had wrenched her from. She didn't want that. If she could simply have everything else but that. She would release a shaking breath. "Then I'm not your sister."

"No, Daesn'yri." It wasn't earthshattering, the way he said it. Her name. The true calling that felt right, like the glass slipper finally finding its home after living upon the paper dredge of Arabella for so long. For Arabella was a name she remembered - just not being addressed by it. It wasn't a destructive storm that she was to weather, it wasn't a hurricane of carnage when it left his lips on a sweet breeze. It was almost casual. Natural. It made her lower the hand that had rested at the side of her head.

And she was quiet.
So very quiet.
"-you are not my sister."

She waited, but he didn't say more. She felt his eyes on her, but she made no effort to meet them as she stared emptily at the dark curtain where the window would be. Where she wished there was something to look at. Eternity seemed to pass then. As she waited. And she waited.

And she waited.
But he didn't say anything else.

Her stare would finally leave the concealing veil that offered both a sense of privacy and at the same time ripped it from vulnerable shoulders. Still, it didn't drift to him. Instead, like silt, it settled upon the floor, unmoving. It left nothing to allow her thoughts to stray to, to let this news roll down her back. Her fingertips edged along the light curve of her arms, crossing and sere nails digging deep into the flesh beyond the cover of her thick woolen sleeves with the ferocity in which she sought to hold herself together.

Why was honesty so hard for these people?
Why did nearly every word they have to breathe be a lie?
Why couldn't this also be?
"Then it was you."

But that whisper never left the confines of her cerebrum. The announcement was merely anointed in the prison of her musings. It had been him she waited for by the pier, that hallowed promise that had crept through the shattered splinters of her broken sanity. A sense given that he could do something to save her. He, however, never came. Her brows rose, if but just faintly. The ghost of a smile pulling her lips. Despite much warmer, much larger reflections of the expression having crossed her countenance, this one in all its smallness, seemed gaunt. Like it was too much skin being pulled too taunt across an embroidery board where the ghastly expression was stitched unnaturally and painfully.

Suddenly, the callouses upon her palms and the sinew that lined her frame instead of malleable flesh that a bed ridden sick girl would attain made sense to her. She'd always found it odd, but inquiries had lead her to the doctor. Where she would emerge in a haze without those conflicting opinions. Would she ever get them back, these things they stole from her? Would she ever truly remember who she had been across the sea? Both the blue and the gold. Or was she lost? Plucked from the cords of history as if she had never existed? At least her own.

No further questions left her. Without realization, the strained simper had also decayed to naught. No sound escaped her, no further movement beyond her head pressing itself to the wall of the wagon. She didn't cry. She thought it would be such a large relief to finally be able to know herself, she had surmised beyond doubt that she would shed tears of joy. She could laugh with them again, she could feel at home again. But deep within her she knew the infallible truth was the faces she shared smiles with were dead. Her home was thousands of miles away and destroyed wholly. She'd seen it in her night terrors.

But she didn't weep like she thought she would.
She didn't cry at all.

"I'm sorry." she blinked, and perhaps it was the first time she had done so in awhile, judging by how her eyes stung with the motion. "I didn't realize.  Not until I saw the ring." Yes, her greatest treasure. The most precious thing that she possessed. The only thing that made the trip with her across the brandished waves of the sea. The ocean tides swallowed the rest of the evidence. The fabrics that would mark where she was from. They were like those purchased at the market. The one that reminded her of the bustling hubbub of the port side city where they had found her. "Because that's the ring I gave to Daesn'yri... to you."

Things didn't return to her in a steady hum, or all in one piece, but those that had found their way home were being put together on a single thread rather than being chased away and thrown to the winds again. She was Daesn'yri. She was the daughter of Chief Ravsk'yri, the man she had been named after in lieu of the son he had always wanted. A joke had run through his lips as even the last of them that claimed the life of her late mother were doomed to be girls. He would never have a proper heir, and it was she that understood perhaps more than any of his other daughters that it wasn't such a condemnation as he always gruffly reminded them of. The eldest of them was where the majority of his focus in training politics had gone. The ways of their precarious world and how to lead - for as the first born and with no young lord to rip the title from her - she would one day inherit his throne.

She had died, however, before the real Arabella had left. She had been the first. She had been proud and kind and stalwart. She had been everything that Daesn'yri was not. For Daesn'yri was a warrior and a huntress, yes, but she shied away from the ceremonial slaughter of animals in sacrificial rites. She did not enjoy reaping the life of their enemies, and avoided it until she had no other course of action. 'Yay oli daa rahd, rerdil.' She would always say. As she often bandaged and tended to her wounds - ones received in their harsh way of life simply because she did not want to strike something down. As time went on, she didn't need that reminder, having learned her lesson. She buried the softness within her, that vulnerable heart caged in a wreath of thorns to guard it away from the world.

'Hi er mad vapemb xovq. Tui bels vess kei, omk duili er maduemb i'ay vom ka oxayd ed.' Would that Mierseri would know now that the sickly young lady had outlived all of them. All of them... but her.

His touch nearly burned her as his fingers glissaded over hers, clutching her hand within his own. The one that had felt so warm and safe when they were younger. The one she had blissfully held in the market as they went along their business. As he allowed her to masquerade as someone she was not. As he let her play the fool to the plans of his parents. It also scorned her to know that his father had originally come to them to merely make a profit. That many of his profits had first been offered to the king seeking to enslave them.

"Look at me." Her jaw clenched at the whispered note of authority that he beckoned her with. There was no place with foolish, gentle softness in this gods forsaken world. "Please..." Alas, her stare would return to him, to find his features bowed to better face her. Her gaze was distant as she beheld him, as she searched his face with a distant disdain. One that wounded her already bleeding heart. Why didn't you tell me then? Why didn't you simply speak before you knew and tell me? You didn't recognize me when you first saw me? The list of accusations died upon her parted lips before she closed them. The dissonance of her attention strayed. She felt... sick.

Distraction was offered, however, as an odd sound thudded along the roof. Her brows furrowed, eyes startled as she looked to where a small wilt in the ceiling announced that something had settled upon the top of the carriage. "What-" before her question could fully form, the sharp edge of the blade would pierce downwards. She would draw in a sharp breath as the weapon bit through the shoulder of her gown, what would have perhaps been the curve of her throat should she not have moved when she did. Just as quick as it had plunged down, it withdrew, the smooth edge humming against the ceiling, leaving her fingers to curl against the puncture, immediately met with the warmth of visceral ichor.

The anguish set in, searing her nerves alight with the sensation of the ruptured sinew and causing her next breath to exude on a slight hum bordering a quiet moaning whimper. Her eyes fixated upon the well of ruby, nearly black as it spilled out, her fingers coming away dyed with the crimson sluice. It was only the desperate wrench and cry of the metal trapped within the grasp of wood that drew her away from it. A silent thanks that it had held her steady, away from the dangerous spiral that was shock, eager to sweep her away.

"Stay down!" he yelled, his voice swimming to her as he shoved her down and she sprawled ungracefully upon the floor of the carriage. Fingers dug across her sundered skin as she cradled the wound, another sound fought to unwind from behind clenched teeth, but it found little purchase as she fought to regain her senses. It suddenly felt all too hot, her pulse hammering harshly against her ear drums. It was so loud she could have almost mistaken it for the roar of gunfire before she caught the glimpse of the assailant toppling from the roof from under the shield of the curtains.

Wild eyes searched for him, her brother. A sickening sentiment as the chilling breeze churned against her skin, fingers tearing at the long strands of her hair. She nearly leaned into it, but knew to do so was a further risk to her health. The disturbance seemed to have riled the horses, their paces growing just as panicked as the shrill sounds that escaped them. "In the trunk!" Came his order and she would cast her eyes towards the opening, picking herself up from the floorboards. "There's a dagger and another pistol.  Keep them close!" Unsteadily, she would riffle through the contents, finding both he had mentioned.

"You know I've n-never used a gun." It rested upon her lap regardless. Her nearly useless hand would drape over the sheathe of the knife, holding it as her slick fingers would release it from the confines. Inspecting it, she would gather the thicker cottons of her skirts and hold them between her teeth as she sawed through the fabric with the edge, concerned primarily at present with halting the flow of vermillion wine from her arm. She would wind the uneven, jagged strip over the weeping puncture, holing it taut with pressure as she allowed herself to drift from the cushioned seat and once more into the floor.

This certainly wasn't how she had imagined her day going.

His shouted orders gave her leave to lift her head slightly. Once again, she would begin to reapply the pressure needed to rid herself of the bleeding in her shoulder. The careen of the carriage slowly came under control. The wild cries of the wheels slowing and hushing. Soon all motion came to a halt, and while there was a sense of relief, it was also followed by doubt. The surroundings she could see from the veil of the swinging door were very obviously not those even remotely close top the estate, and she had a feeling they weren't even across the boundary that would lead into Odersten.

She listened closely, but there was only one pair of footsteps she could discern coming from the driver's perch. Had that poor man also met with their unwanted guest? A strand of guilt pulled at her heart. If only they hadn't found her perhaps this wouldn't have happened. However, it brought another musing to breach the cloud on her thoughts.

Where was the real Arabella?

She had regained her feet when he arrived at the door. Streaks of tears from watering eyes and sweat that ran softly down her temples accented her features along with the decorations of dust and tiny splinters from the broken ceiling. "How bad is it?" She would merely shake her head in answer, unknowing the true damage done. She had full control of the limb, but any motion at all was more than enough to send a sharp burn through the entire thing resulting it hanging limply at her side. "D-dont know." She added afterwards, stepping from the interior into the caress of the biting night air.

"I'm sorry, Dae." Again, she would tilt her crown in dismissal. She was still bitter, uncertain of how to proceed with this awkward situation. "Did he get you anywhere else?" She would give a cursory glance towards her front, turning her back to him as she slowly removed the cloth that had done its most to blot out the damage of her limb. "Well... w-what's the damage?" She inquired, knowing that the worst of the cut felt like it had speared down the back of her shoulder rather than the front. However, she didn't bother to look over it towards him, her sight remaining on the dirt near her feet.

"Where is she?" She asked,  her voice softer. "Where is Arabella?"