The sunset sunk below the horizon, leaving behind deepening purple and gray. Sanria looked up to the dome of her observatory, noting the twinkling stars that were just beginning to wink to life. The tears were simply falling from her face now. With no one to hide it from, her grief wet her cheeks, her neck, and her robe.
Days before she had spent with Throm. Her sorrow did not stem at all from that. Indeed, she had been overjoyed to sit with him in the observatory, to eat with him, to admit that she was actually falling in love with him. They had a moonlit walk where they talked for hours, and sitting in his mansion drinking tea and cuddling was something that Sanria hadn't experienced in a long, long while.
The sun was up before she had even left his house - and she was almost tempted to stay in the guest room. Out of decency, however, she resigned to walk home no matter how fatigued she was. The smile she had plastered on her face never left, even though in the back of her mind, she waiting for something to go wrong. Inevitably, there was always something. No one was perfect. No one.She had gone home and slept for hours and found herself the next day sitting on a boulder beside the falls. The sun was arcing well past its zenith, but it still shed warmth and light through the trees and onto Sanria's face. She thought of the green eyes and found herself looking into a pair of them - but not the ones she expected. The brown clothed stranger had a certain ease about him that Sanria felt kindred to, as though she had known it long ago. He was soft spoken, even though neither of them had much to say. Out for a stroll was the traveler's reasoning - and it was as good as any.
Sanria parted with him and began walking behind the falls and into the cavern, when the distinct sense of being trailed caused her to turn around. She was in time to see the man take out a long staff and tap the hull of one of her ships. As she spoke to him, things became clearer until before she knew it, everything was painfully obvious. All she wanted to do, was prove to herself that this man was Ozymandias. "Do you remember a man named Thasmudyan? White clothing? Carver?"
"I met someone like that recently. He had set out on quite a long journey, I understand."
So Thasmudyan was indeed about. It wasn't that Sanria wished him dead, but when he was dead, things were much easier to deal with.
"Not long ago, near the place you call "Waterdeep". He mentioned you a few times." And now Sanria felt the full crushing blow of this chance meeting. He was alive, and right in the same place she had been.
She didn't want to ask, but she did... she had to know. "What did he say about me?"
"That you deserved better, mostly."
"Such a selfish, foolish thing to say." Sanria felt herself spiraling and took her leave of the man she hadn't seen since sparring with him in the cavern. This man had saved her life, and as she had found through the course of their conversation, had saved Emalia's too. But oh...
Sanria made her way into her house, her body sliding against the walls as she walked the stairs all the way to the observatory. She screamed, she ripped ivy from the walls and threw the leaves upon the floor like ejected butterflies. She slammed herself into the throne that sat in the center of the room and sobbed until she felt she couldn't sob any more. Finally, she got up, and walked to the window where, despite her best efforts, the salt-water tears continued pouring down her face.
She knew now where Emalia was. And she knew now where she was. Her husband was no longer hers. He belonged to a past now that was not to be recovered. She was alone in her home, but now that the door had finally, in her eyes, been closed - she realized she was not completely left in a void. As her tears rolled, she thought of a pair of green eyes and on some level it comforted her to know that he, too, might be watching the same colors bleed from the sky.
