Embers of Sun and Flame: Before We Have It (Fuegoleon x OC)

Chapter 21 The worry

The tavern was painted with soft light cascading from the lanterns, and the scent of food lingering in the room mixed with the breezes carrying in fresh air from the slightly opened window. But there was a sense of comfort that came with it. The comfort of the rich aromas of dinner, combined with the sense of freedom that came with the late evening air.

Mereo was on her second drink of the evening, and had nearly finished it already. Which was understandable, since she had been the first to arrive.

"Did you lose Tani on your way here?" Solara teased, taking her seat at the table with a glass of wine of her own.

Mereo let out a faint scoff, despite the corner of her mouth tugging up into a smirk. "She had something she needed to take care of," she replied with a faint, soft tone that was accompanied by a gentle smile. "But she'll be here in a while," her eyes turned to look out of the window.

Solara swirled the red liquid in her glass, contemplating about everything and nothing in particular, letting her mind wander free. And yet it refused to land on anything specific. Perhaps that was for the better.

"She's been working hard, hasn't she? Tani, I mean," she finally uttered, making Mereo glance to her from the corner of her eye.

"She has," this time there was a frankness in her tone. The was acknowledgement and pride, hidden under the few words, spoken in something that was almost haste. "And she wants to do her part in protecting this kingdom."

The sentence was genuine, but it felt incomplete; as if there was a comma, instead of a period, at the end of it.

"I sense a 'but' coming," Solara noted before taking a sip of her drink.

"But..." Mereo paused. Her eyelids fell in a slow blink, almost as if she didn't want to finish the sentence. "Her place is not on this battlefield." Her eyes opened, but they stayed down, as a result of an estimate that seemed to discredit everything that came before it.

"Have you told her that?" It was a fair question, even if it really wasn't any of Solara's business. She wasn't in a position to evaluate this matter. She wasn't in a position to tell Mereo what she should and shouldn't say.

"She is tough," Mereo's eyes lifted to Solara's, watching her from under her brows. The gaze was fierce, filled with fire and flame, but not quite bloodlust. "And she is resilient."

"That is not what I asked for," Lara noted, tilting her head.

But the reply, to the question was in the silence that lingered. It was hidden between the lines of everything that was left unsaid.

"She knows what she can and cannot do," Mereo continued, after a while. Even if that wasn't exactly on topic either. Instead, she kept going around it, as if assessing, circling. The things she didn't want to say.

"Does she want to be there?" Another question, this one to entertain the circling and assessing, instead of addressing the original inquiry.

"Who would want to be there?" There was a hint of a smirk in the scoff that left Mereo.

"You do."

This time the hint grew into a proper smirk, before the reply left. "Because I have proper prey on whom I can test a few things."

It was an arrogant statement, but Mereo knew it. Solara suspected that Mereo knew it. Somewhere in the depths of her thoughts, she must've known it. Because otherwise, if she was fully confident in her own capabilities, she wouldn't be saying how her loved one shouldn't be on this battlefield.

"Just watch that you don't exhaust yourself," Solara replied, choosing to not play along with the statement that bore amusement, along with the arrogance.