Her heels clicked against the boards of the dock as she walked away from the ship. She held her overcoat tightly closed against her chest as she walked, as if clinging onto a security blanket. She stepped off the steps and into the sand, her ankle twisting and almost catching her off balance. It’s been some time since she set foot in the sand, and even longer since she had seen Mythndale.
She looked around, and had a feeling that something was very different. What was it? It felt empty to her. She walked towards where her markets once stood, knowing that they had long since turned to ash, but hoped the sands would tell the secrets of their past. Emptiness. She wasn’t surprised. It was just how she left it. But, there was something else. She realized that not one eye of one guard followed her. Hell, she realized there were no guards, the gallant Mythndale knights that once littered the streets to protect it’s citizens from the dragons, plagues, and demons.
She swallowed hard, and continued on, across the bridge to where the Manor used to sit. An imprint of what once stood there could be seen in the grass, darker than its surrounding carpet. She bowed her head apologetically for what she had so swiftly abandoned, the virtuous King of Mythndale, and his kingdom. Their kingdom. She bent down to pull out a tuft of grass, and let it blow through her fingers as she walked on toward Varstaad.
Still a lovely town, she thought. Nothing’s changed. Up the path from the bank, her house still stood in all its marvelous glory. She had picked a good stone. It held up well for her. Pulling a key from her cleavage, she turned the lock on the cobwebbed doors, leaning in to give them a push with all her weight. They groaned as they moved inward, and the house exhaled a breath of dust and sorrow that puffed into the outside air. Coughing, she turned around and with all her might, shoved the doors shut again. The closure echoed through her grand hall, and pigeons could be heard from one of the rooms, flapping around frantically. "Must have a window out," she thought.
Kairi slowly walked up to her quarters, paying no mind to the filth that had built up over the years. She walked in, closed the door behind her and locked it. She side-glanced her reflection in the bedroom mirror, her face smudged with dirt, her golden hair grayed with dust. The bright of her green eyes and the red of her scar dominated the glum image in front of her. She wiped her cheek, revealing a streak of milky hue beneath. "First thing in the morning, a bath for you and me both, house." She sluggishly stepped over to the bed and dropped upon it like a hoisted corpse. Dust flew up from the impact, but she was too far asleep to care.
