Under the Maltese Skies

[Omi]

Charlotte took in a deep, shaky breath, closing her eyes briefly. Letting her temper get out of control wouldn't help her in either case -- antagonising your captor was rarely a good move. Instead, she took a brief mental backstep, quashing her anger under the growing numbness of such unwelcome news. It felt like she was being hollowed out from the inside, thrust into a new reality that she wanted so desperately to deny.

"Where's my sister?" was her next question, the princess pausing for a brief second before accepting the offered hand to lever herself to her feet. She broke contact soon after, though, turning slightly away from Enma herself to peer out of the window at the mountains beyond. They served as a minor distraction from the pressing issues now closing in on all sides -- and while the temptation to return Enma's small talk was great, it would have been the easy way out. "Has she been heard of at all? Is she with the Kingdom's forces? Speaking of which--"

Charlotte paused for a few seconds further, fidgeting with her hands. She looked profoundly ill-at-ease for a moment, her expression full of thought before she turned again to regard Enma full-on.

"--I don't know this marquise d'Avignon, but you cannot tell me that all royalist sentiment is gone from whatever remains of the old regime," she said, with more confidence than she truly felt. "I need to contact them -- elements of them, at least. Through proxy at first, perhaps."

For a brief moment, she continued to be lost in thought, contemplating any number of future plans and ways forwards before -- eventually -- she turned from the window once more. Her gaze met Enma's own in earnest, her jaw set and expression stern.

"Why are you here, then, Dona Loyola?" she asked, the title sounding strange in her mouth. "You know what I want already -- open communication with my sister and anyone yet sympathetic to me, and my eventual release from this glorified prison. What do you want from me in return, then, so we can get to business?" She offered no verbal response to the other woman's light suggestion that they take the conversation elsewhere, but a slight nod of her head towards the indicated doorway served to signal her acquiescence.

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