MOVEMENT TWO -- The Way You're Walking

2.1 -- Cleaning Up, Slowly

The washing room tucked off the alcove was small and simple -- a basin of clear, endlessly warm water that never seemed to need refilling, a low shelf of folded linens, a mirror of the same soft crystal as the rest of Ilyrisse's halls. Wren stood in front of it a while, still faintly unsteady, taking her time about the whole quiet business of putting herself back together.

She caught her own reflection at one point and had to stop and actually look -- flushed high across her cheeks in a way that hadn't fully faded, hair come loose from its usual practical knot, an unmistakable softness around her eyes that she wasn't accustomed to seeing looking back at her. She washed slowly, unhurried, aware the whole time of a certain lingering awareness low in her body that she suspected wasn't going to fade quite as fast as she'd have liked, and dressed again with more care than the task strictly required, choosing, this time, something that covered rather more than what she'd worn coming in.

It had become something of a running joke among the household, she knew, the particular contrast between what she wore around Eremos and what she wore everywhere else. Around him, she dressed the way she felt around him -- unguarded, a little daring, hemlines shorter than practicality could ever justify, necklines that gave up all pretense of modesty the moment he was actually in the room. Everywhere else, especially anywhere she'd be seen by strangers, by souls outside the household, she reverted immediately to the same plain, sensible, covered-throat-to-wrist practicality she'd worn her whole mortal life as a bodyguard -- as though some deep, old instinct in her still needed armor the moment Eremos himself wasn't there to make the exposure feel safe.

She was still fastening the last clasp of her outer layer, a long, high-collared coat the deep green of old moss, when she heard the door open behind her.

2.2 -- The Whole Household Knows Everything Eventually

"Oh, you're walking funny," said a voice, delighted, before Wren had even finished turning around -- one of the women who'd joined the household more recently than most, though nobody in the room would ever have said so aloud, since "recent" here still meant years, and years still meant she belonged exactly as fully as anyone else who'd found her way to this strange, sprawling family. She stood in the doorway with her arms crossed and an expression of pure, unrepentant glee.

"I am not."

"You absolutely are. It's very distinctive. I've seen it on plenty of us at one point or another, and I am becoming something of an expert." She tilted her head, studying Wren's gait with genuine scientific interest as Wren tried, and failed, to walk normally across the small room. "There it is again."

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"I hate all of you," Wren said, with no real heat behind it.

"You don't. You love us. That's rather the problem." A second voice now, from further down the hall -- Elowen, unmistakably, drawn by the commotion the way she was always drawn to exactly this kind of commotion. She appeared in the doorway a moment later, took one look at Wren, and grinned outright. "There she is. Look at you. Positively glowing."

"I am not glowing."

"You're glowing," Elowen confirmed, delighted, "and also, darling, I don't want to embarrass you, but you might want to check your collar before you go anywhere public."

Wren frowned, glancing down at herself, and then, with a sudden, mortified realization, reached up and checked the side of her own neck, then her collarbone, then, with rising alarm, patted down the front of her coat, searching for any telltale trace she might have missed in her hurry to get dressed. She found nothing, thankfully, but the search itself only made both women laugh harder.

"I wasn't being literal," Elowen said, wiping at her eyes. "But that reaction was worth every single word."

"You're both terrible."

"We're both very fond of you," Elowen corrected, still grinning, "which apparently expresses itself as terribleness, in this household. Go on. Off to wherever you were headed. Try to walk normally. It won't work, but I admire the effort."

Wren left with as much dignity as she could still gather, which admittedly wasn't a great deal, their laughter following her the whole way down the hall.

2.3 -- What She Actually Went to Check

She found Eremos exactly where she'd left him, still unhurried, still entirely unbothered by the fact that half the household now knew, with total certainty, precisely how they'd both spent the last several hours.

"They got you too," he said, not quite hiding his own smile.

"They get everyone eventually. I don't know why I ever think I'll be the exception." She crossed to him, straightening his collar with more attention than it required, an old habit from centuries of making sure the people she cared about looked presentable before facing the world, and paused, frowning slightly, checking the fabric at his shoulder the way she'd just checked her own.

"What are you doing?"

"Making sure I didn't miss anything," she said, entirely matter-of-fact, smoothing the fabric back into place once she was satisfied. "Elowen's teasing aside, it would be considerably more embarrassing if you walked out of here looking like you'd just come from exactly where you came from."

"I don't think anyone in this house is under any illusions about where I spend my time," Eremos said, amused, catching her hand before she could pull it back and pressing a brief, warm kiss to her knuckles instead. "But I appreciate the diligence."

"Someone has to look after you properly," Wren said, and there was real fondness underneath the dry delivery, the same old instinct that had once kept her stationed at doorways now simply pointed somewhere gentler, somewhere that no longer needed guarding against anything at all, only cared for.