17 ◦ [AUDIO]

[akingmuststand]

My, my -

[The voice that speaks should be easily recognisable to most people here. Schneizel speaks, as usual, without panic, without anger - just a small, perhaps bemused, smile and a hint of mild interest.]- it would be a gross exaggeration on my part to say that I had been gone for more than an hour, but it seems that such has not been the case

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[action]

[a_la_turk]

[ And a yes is all that she needs to invoke the familiar hum of her materia. The sound of what could only be a door opening or closing can be heard a split second before the feed is cut and Valeria is on her way, racing across the cold earth with her sights set upon the stone structure in the distance as though it, he might disappear at any moment.

But he could, he might. If not today, then someday. It is a reality none who set foot in Demeleier can escape. Things, circumstances change. People, they come and they go. Some return, some don't, and she knows. She knows regret. She feels it in her chest, a tightness that twists and turns and overwhelms the self, the will and drive and heart, the love of life. It takes, took. Took in the guise of a thin shield meant to repel, to deny, to protect. Born from the very same, it protected nothing. Would protect nothing were she to bear it again. It would, could breed only more of the same.

Regret. Sadness. Anger.

She inhales sharply, steadying herself, and stays the course at a run, never slowing. She knows. What it is, who it's for, and it isn't nothing. She could tell herself that it's nothing, but she won't, not anymore. She knows she might never get this opportunity again, that the clock is steadily ticktickticking away again; and yet, it seems to slow as she comes upon the Temple and lifts dark purple eyes to see... ]

[action] whoops posted without completing it >>

[akingmuststand]

[Schneizel standing before the stone steps, looking precisely as he did when he left to all extents and purposes, his movement unhurried, as if the circumstances were without complications, like being ripped once again from purpose, from duty, and what might be a pre-written fate.

Inspite of this, as if it was nothing, not even the faintest troubling dream, he smiles when his eyes meet hers, his gaze as she doubtlessly remembers it: cool, sharp, even distant. But not too far away. Not entirely out of reach. Not immune to the mirth that curves his lips. The surprise of her changed speed, her swift entrances, has long since dispersed through familiarity into something more bemused. It's something he equates with her intrinsically.

She is not to be measured in terms of value, of worth, of avarice - no human, no figure should be. She is precious, priceless, as every other, and yet he thinks fondly to himself that he would be a richer man indeed were she in Britannia.

But probably no less doomed, and such calamities - such well played, exquisitely placed calamities - were to be reined in and contained.

Inwardly digressing, he tilted his head, smile growing minutely in greeting. A small change, but one she'd surely seen enough of him to note.]

I'm glad to be reassured that your promptness has not suffered.