Looking upon the young woman's back as she strode into the middle of the room, surveying with quick turns of her head at all the contents there, Rhea considered the point moot. Nobles clothed in bolts of fine-colored silk, dripping with jewelry around their fingers and necks would be terribly outclassed in Lyra's presence. Not only because of their endless flouting and posturing but their inability to follow what she so easily understood. Rhea turned back to the door, peering out into the stillness of her front yard for Ulysses before Lyra's voice called out, "Be at ease. I'd brought more than needed and decided to feed him an apple or two."

"You bought his silence long enough to make your trickery," Rhea said, shutting the door behind her as she turned around. In the midst of her distraction, Lyra took up the table and began unpacking her basket. 

"I repaid him for bringing my dear friend home safely," Lyra stated matter-of-factly, glancing over her shoulder as she set down three small lacquered jars. "Surely, you did not walk all this way on your feet."

Rhea's shoulders tensed until Lyra's gaze drifted back to her work. Had the eyes within the forest told her of the squadron resting upon her doorstep? If so why would she have come bearing, to what Rhea smelled, cooking by her own hand? 

"You don't expect me to eat all of this alone, do you?" Lyra asked, looking to Rhea with a raised brow before nodding her head toward the chair drawn close to the fire. "Come, I'll gather the plates."

Rhea opened her mouth the shut it, shoulders falling as she set to the task at hand. The cupboard doors didn't creak upon opening and Lyra deftly found the plates within, clattering them into a pile as she withdrew silverware from the drawers then returned to set the table. Rhea settled her chair in the empty space near the table, running an eye over the table clothes settled beneath plates and cutlery which bore not a single blemish. 

"It was you, wasn't it?" Rhea asked, glancing up to Lyra as she tucked the basket beneath the table.

Lyra stood up, huffing softly, "Pardon?"

"The one who has been tending to my home," Rhea clarified, not missing the widening of Lyra's eyes. "How long have you been doing this?"

Silence fell between the two, but Rhea was no stranger to waiting. Lyra pulled her chair back and sat down, lost in contemplation with her clever eyes drifting about the room, never quite lingering long in one place or another. 

In return, Rhea's eyes never left her.

She was almost grateful for the opportunity Lyra's silence granted. The years passed between them brought womanhood into full bloom for the two women, and with it, surely pronounced a degree of change to the person whom Rhea knew well in her girlhood. She wondered how deep the change ran.

"How did you know?" Lyra asked, returning her attentions to Rhea with curiosity, "I made sure not to leave anything untoward and none other than myself or Damiano came here."

Rhea felt her shoulders relax at those words. She drew out her chair, and sat down whilst she spoke, "The stitchings in the wooden men's clothing, and the lack of dust."

Lyra's lips puckered in a soundless 'o' before she laughed. "I suppose being too meticulous worked against me," she said, resting her cheek against her propped up hand. The tip of her littlest finger traced along the curve of her eye as she smiled down at the covered dishes between them. "It's been six suns. I thought if you were to return, you should do so to a warm hearth and a hearty meal."

Rhea's eyes softened as she watched the tiniest quiver tremble Lyra's lips before her palm covered them from view. "Though, if you were to have sent a letter before you'd come all this way, I could have had everything prepared," Lyra complained, her closed-lidded eyes crescented teasingly.

She hasn't changed at all, Rhea thought. While the setting of their meeting changed, the nature of it had not. From this moment to countless others stretching unto the past, Lyra had welcomed her unannounced or with missives hastily sent through the clumsy words of her younger brother. She was diligent in her patience, mindful not to intrude during Rhea's training, and daring enough to make herself at home. Rhea's mind wandered to the rocking chair settled silently beneath the eaves, how the dappled sunlight would shower its seat and a dozing girl curled up against the arm would rise at the creaking steps and call sweetly,

"—Rhea?"

Stirred from her reminiscence, Rhea stared at the Lyra across from her wide-eyed with concern. A stranger of six suns, yet no less kind for it. 

Rhea bowed her head, lowering her eyes to the dish set before her. "I… cannot thank you enough," she said, inhaling slowly to gather her thoughts and attempt to arrange them into proper words. Her hands curled to fists against her lap as shame wrapped hotly around her nape, keeping her head hung. "For thinking of me in spite of my absence, I thank you and apologize for I had never intended too neglect your companionship."

Lyra's response to this was to sigh, long and fatigued. Rhea gathered her wits to raise her head and found cool eyes fixing her in place.  "I think of you even while you sit before me now," she said tersely, and the scalding heat of Rhea's shame lightened to a fluster filling her cheeks. Lyra frowned, leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed beneath her chest. " I cannot fathom how you could see your return as neglect. Are you not whole and hale as I bade? Is there any injury you are hiding from my eyes?"

Rhea straightened her back against the accusation but couldn't to find it in herself to dismiss it outright. Knighthood was not without its dangers. To put one's life on the line to protect their charge demanded some form of sacrifice, and flesh was a sparing cost. She was resolute in her payment but as Lyra searched her face, there was a hint of doubt whether her old friend would see the same. Lyra's search yielded no response to what she'd found; her eyes closed with a smoothing of her lips. 

"Tending to this land was not a wholly selfless act," Lyra explained, tilting her head toward the window as she opened her eyes. "I feel at peace here. I am not the Mweziyah, nor daughter or sister should I come alone. Here, I am only Lyra."

Hearing those words cleared Rhea's mind, though it left her with others. She considered the axe resting over the fireplace, and the one who it once belonged to. While her thoughts rarely drifted to the cabin itself and the items within it were only half-remembered by the years spent there, how seldom did she think of returning to take the axe with her? If she had only done so, would she have given a second thought to the work performed by her old friend or the cabin's state?

"You are thinking too loudly," Lyra scolded. "If you are speaking to the me within your mind, perhaps you would find it fruitful to converse with the one before you."

Rhea glanced at her, opening her mouth to apologize but falling short when Lyra turned the full force of her gaze onto her. She wracked her mind for something else then, recognizing the futility of offering apologies. The warmth in Lyra's familiarity with her and the sweetness in her voice being sapped away with each passing moment in the bitterness of Rhea's lack of attentiveness. Regret stung her chest when Lyra shook her head with an exhale from the nose, seemingly giving up on the discussion as she reached for one of the covered dishes. 

Rhea's hand sprang forth then, catching it with a light squeeze around the width of her palm. Lyra's hand stiffened and her eyes lifted to meet Rhea's with confusion, and patience. Swallowing thickly, Rhea felt smothered by that look. Would that she could tell Lyra everything as her old friend so plainly did as easy as breathing. But the soldiers resting in the village would have no hope of being accepted by the villagers, and disturbing Lyra's peace within the refuge she sought was far crueler. 

Rhea's face tightened while her touch relaxed until she could slide her fingers beneath Lyra's and caress her palm gently, squarely meeting her gaze. Lyra's eyebrows raised at the parting of Rhea's lips and the words spilling forth, "My duty is not yet over. I returned for a mission, and without its completion, I will not be able to undergo the journey."

Lyra did not pull her hand back but she did avert her gaze, seeking something in the room without putting a name to it. "I thought something was odd about you," she said, unknowingly arresting Rhea's breath until she clarified with a glance in her direction. "You are not wearing armor, nor carrying a weapon."

Rhea caught herself before she muttered, "The villagers would not be pleased to see an armed outsider, knight or otherwise, wandering their lands."

Lyra narrowed her eyes, curling her fingers around the breadth of Rhea's palm in return with a tight squeeze. "If it is one of their own, they would have no cause for concern."

Rhea shook her head, recognizing the tell-tale sign of an age-old argument. "Lyra," she whispered in a hushed tone, squeezing her old friend's softer hand. She wished she'd known of Lyra's arrival sooner so she would have an opportunity to wash up. Her hand was not hardened by calluses and dirtied beneath the nails with grime. It was light with knowing but strong in application. A hand befitting of a scholar, a dancer, and one suited for a life of peace. 

Rhea brushed her thumb against Lyra's knuckles, admitting quietly, "I did not wish to return until the pilgrimage was complete, but neither did I wish to harm you with my silence. And… confine you to a wretchedness of waiting without relief."

The strength to which Lyra seized Rhea's hand brought her back from her mind, staring widely at the hurt riddling her old friend's face. "I am relieved," Lyra stated, bolting to her feet with a harsh scrape of her chair's wooden legs. "You cannot begin to understand how much seeing your face gladdens me."

Rhea thought to ask her to sit, to wait a moment longer when Lyra began to step from around her side of the table but the trembling squeeze to her hand silenced her. 

"You have never cared for the spirits," Lyra began, "but surely you live and feel the change within the land. Did you not feel it odd that Aethelu did not greet you upon your return?"

"I—" Rhea started, glancing up from their clasped hands to the desperation shining in Lyra's wet eyes. Tears, Rhea realized with startling clarity and a sourness at the back of her throat. She thought back to the march in the woods, and how anxiousness gnawed at her nerves. How the spirits watched them but said nothing, and came no closer, only observing before turning their eyes away entirely. It hadn't occurred to her, so lost in ensuring her company maintained respectful and silent, that their reception was not noticed at all. 

Lyra may not have known where her mind wandered, but she seemed to acknowledge Rhea's silence as understanding. She stood by Rhea's side now, clasping her hands around Rhea's own as she pressed them to the heat of her navel and held tight.  Rhea looked up at her eyes, stricken by the dullness within them despite the glossiness. 

"Aethelu is dying, Rhea," she confessed, quietly as though speaking louder would bring about something worse. Rhea pushed back her chair, standing with her empty hand reaching for Lyra's shoulder as a deluge of words reached her ears, "A new Guardian is soon to be born, the world as I know it is mourning, and you understand so little of what it means that you've returned alive."

Lyra shivered, leaning into her touch but refusing to raise her eyes. Rhea hesitated in return, carefully moving her hand from her shoulder to the softness of her cheek. A pang of guilt lanced through her stomach when the heel of her hand dampened as a silver streak fell from her eyelashes. 

"Even if you were to leave again tonight, on a mission or to the godsforsaken unknown, I could not be happier than right now," Lyra said, abandoning her hold on Rhea's offered hand to burrow herself against her chest. Rhea inhaled sharply when slender fingers curled tight in her tunic, pulling it taut against her skin as lithe arms held her in a vice. The trembling, proud woman in her arms did not fall apart but she shuddered as if another piece of her was coming undone.  

With great care, Rhea did what she could and plucked the piece that'd come loose while laying her arms around her in return.