Chapter Text
“A letter?” Kel asked, puzzled. The mail wasn't due for a week or more, and that if there was – relative – peace.
Then she saw the seal on the parchment.
She turned it over in her hands, apprehension and excitement warring inside her. Nothing to do but open it, of course. Then she would know.
Eight words. She read them several times, heart thumping. Alanna, here? She'd meant to issue an invitation, yes, but then she would have had time to prepare. Her tent was a mess – worn clothing and gear in need of mending, scattered from one end of it to the other. She was a mess. She'd barely slept in days, her hair was unwashed. Where was her comb? Her spare pillow? The one shirt she'd kept apart, so it didn't smell of horse and used cooking oil? Where...?
She stopped. There was Alanna, in the doorway of her tent. In person.
“Lioness,” she managed, voice cracking on the single word.