Well. Here they were. Praxis didn't know what to think, say, or even really do as she weaved through the apple trees, moving carefully as if too heavy a step risked shaking the fruits from their branches. Not that she didn't want to try one--after all, she'd never seen anything like these back home, and the flesh of those half-eaten on the ground looked harmless enough--but she wished more in that moment just to revel in the dangling orbs of red and yellow, so much more massive than the berries to which she was accustomed to seeing. Of course, some of them were starting to soften and shrivel with the onset of cooler weather, but that was just fine. The change in scenery was as refreshing now as ever, even with the scenery beginning to die.

"Do you miss them?" The question was dressed in almost pure curiosity, but Praxis wouldn't have asked it if she hadn't been thinking of them at least a little. Of him. How could she not, though? The sights were glorious, the taste of freedom as sweet on her tongue as she was sure an apple might be, but that didn't change the fact that they'd made this drastic decision. Was Calixta wrestling with lingering thoughts, too? Or had she become so fed up that now she hardly kept room for their old pack in her head?

Calixta was always a wanderer, always wanting to see new sights, explore new places. It made these early days in this new place such a gift, one that made the elated feeling in her chest almost impossible to dampen. Of course, there were drawbacks to her situation, ones she preferred not to focus on. As she took in the sights of the orchard, the tantalizing scents, she could almost imagine she were in some fairy tale land. It was stunningly beautiful in its uniqueness. Perhaps places like this weren’t so odd to see, maybe it was just the newfound freedom that made everything so much more vivid and fantastic, but she almost felt as though she’d been seeing the world in black and white until now, and the full spectrum of color had only just recently be opened up to her.

Praxis’ question brought a rare frown to her face, just a subtle downturn of the corners of her mouth coupled with a slight furrow of her brows as she thought about it. She turned the question over in her mind, trying to think of her answer. "Sometimes..." She sometimes thought of her brothers and missed the conversations that they had, she missed being able to turn to them for advice or lessons or a distraction. She missed having Armen hold her in the evening, missed having that feeling when she thought they were in love. But when she really thought about it, she knew her brothers were happy where they were. If they weren’t, there would have been no reason for them not to come with her and Praxis, and she thought it would be selfish to wish they were by her side still when she knew they had a different path in life that they needed to follow in order for them to feel real joy like she did now. And when she thought of Armen… It wasn’t the real him she missed. She missed the man she thought he was. That person had never truly existed, though, and so in reality, there was nothing there for her to really miss. "Do you regret coming with me?" She glanced towards her sister, hoping that the answer would be a resounding no. She didn’t know if she’d be able to enjoy this place as much if she knew her best friend was miserable.

"Speech" || Thoughts

"Sometimes," her sister replied, and Praxis nodded as her eyes continued to wander, finding herself comforted by that answer. She struggled sometimes with knowing exactly how to feel about those they'd left behind. Of course she was upset with Aleksandr and, by extension of her sister, Armen, but that didn't mean she didn't miss them either. Or, at least, that she didn't wish things had been different with them. If they'd been better men, then perhaps she and Cali might not have felt so forced to leave. They could still have their brothers and all the friends they'd made within the Kingdom, including the royalty with whom they'd grown up. But it was because of them that the girls had turned their noses up to their home--and traded it for new opportunities.

Calixta turned the questions onto her, now, but Praxis glanced to her with ease and a one-sided smirk, shaking her head. "How could I?" she huffed. "Our entire lives would have belonged to that place...and I'd rather be able to get away from the next man who gets my hopes up." There was both humor and truth to those words, of course.

Her eyes slowly drifted back into distraction. "I suppose I'm just trying to wrap my head around the fact that we can, now. I hardly know what to do with me."

A blink brought her attention back to Calixta. Did she already have a plan for herself?

"

table by Lowin art by Resin

There was no hesitance in her sisters response, and Calixta felt beyond relieved at that. There had been a part of her that worried that Praxis had only come out of a sense of obligation, she had always been the more rational of the two, and her decision to leave had been sudden and drastic, and not at all something that she had expected the healer to follow along with. "Good. I don’t know what I’d do if you hadn’t come with me." She smiled, moving to gently bump her shoulder into the other woman’s, falling quiet once more to listen to the rest of what she had to say.

Her sister's comment of not knowing what to do with herself still rang true. Even though they had each other to hold onto, there was still so much that they had left behind, so much was still unknown. "It feels so odd to not have a place… I’m glad we aren’t where we were, but… I don’t know what to do with me either." She turned her head to meet her sister's gaze. What exactly were they supposed to do now? "It’s weird not having a job to do, no real purpose to anything aside from taking care of ourselves."

"Speech" || Thoughts