Thin lips part and resolve from a place nonplussed to one of muted affection.

“Dear Pyna...”

Sepet sweet

Fetch for me, so kindly,

Father’s fourth key…

The tray-bearer’s brows, thin as his lips, a little, cloud.

“As you wish. Allow me this-”

Pyna, her regard like that of a perilous porcelain marionette, with eyes of chipped glass and little painted-bow lips in the ruddy chamber-light.  

Leave the seneschal a moment.

His poison petals and stew.

Setting the copper service down with gingerly care, up onto a cracked and ill-kept alabaster shelf, Sepet swiftly turns, his thin-lipped smile blooming anew.

“Of course, Pyna dear. Have you travelled far?”

Sepet’s eyes, expressing ample wondering, wander without a word to rest upon Umin, who shifts with naked unease, attempting his utmost to remain as unseen behind Pyna, and the cascading curtain-works as is mortally conceivable. 

Dark as dust and

Dark as rue…

Dear Sepet, through under-roads and fatty forest-folds.

As ever, far far. And no.

Upon Father I have not of late looked.