Lady Elise Antoine de Bellefeuille wakens in a room lit by the glow of the morning sun through drawn lace curtains. Nightmares haunted her sleep, where she gave birth to a monstrous infant poodle with deep green eyes and black bat wings, while her dead parents screamed curses at her in her sister's voice. For a moment relief washes over her: It was all a dream. And then she remembers.

The poodle woman, head of her household and officer to Rephidim, braces herself with her left hand and pushes herself up to a sitting position. As she considers the day before, she finds her mood growing increasingly sour. The confrontation with her sister about Cyprian was horrible for her younger sister to endure, more so than her injured leg. To be questioned … doubted … by Katherine on such a painful and delicate subject, for her younger sister to assume so much and of all things declare her hatred for her was more than Elise could stand. Like her sister she fled the conflict, leaving the house by Drokar back, carried in a twist of irony by her mount Secrets. She remembers hours kneeling before the place where her father and mother rest asking for forgiveness for her younger sister's failure, offering her truths to the silent tomb. Forgiveness she did not find, she feels.

The poodle has ample time to brood as she lies in her bed, covers spilled around her waist, still wearing her chemise from the night before. After an unknown period of time, a gentle knock disturbs her. "Miss?" a familiar voice squeaks in Eeee.

In those long moments before the knock Elise ponders a wide manner of subjects, all however tied to that one trouble, that one failing of hers. To he whom she knows herself to love, forbidden and shameful as it is to her, Mage Cyprian. She recalls the dream and frowns, lifting a hand to brush her hair back so that she might rub one of her temples as she finds herself struck by a mild headache. Undoubtedly the ache is caused by the most intangible one that haunts her now. She moves on to think of Katherine and how betrayed she was. Katherine, her sister, who means so very much and has always been at the very heart of all she has tried for. She thought when she came home that she could finally explain all that has happened, to trust her sister and try and think of her as more than her younger sibling to be protected and kept far from the troubles of her world as it is now. But she was too late. The voice stirs her from her memories and the poodle woman looks up. "Yes, Indigo?" she inquires.

"Miss, are you all right?" The Aelfin cracks open the door but doesn't yet enter. "I brought you some scones and an omelet. The cook said you liked them."

Lady de Bellefeuille inclines her head to the offer, and the inquiry. "I am … well enough, Indigo. A troublesome sleep, but no matter." She smiles faintly, though it looks only partially genuine at best. "Yes, breakfast would perfect. Thank you, Indigo."

The Aelfin tiptoes in, as if afraid to disturb her. "Is there aught that Miss would like to do today?" she asks, setting a bed tray table laden with food over the poodle's lap.

The Gallee does not answer right away, instead busying herself with seemingly uneasy energy. She takes up a scone and spreads jam thickly across it before carefully easing the jam across it more carefully. The process might well appear unnecessary. "Do you enjoy your employment with me, Indigo?" she asks, her words unrelated to the question posed to her.

The Aelfin blinks a few times. "Of course, Miss," she answers quickly.

Elise inclines her head to the Aelfin's response. She then turns from her and takes to looking out the window as she takes small bites from her crumpet. "I am glad to hear it. I had hoped you would find a place here, and They seem to have destined a path for you that moves beside mine own." She wanes quiet again, eating and watching the world wake up before she continues. "Indigo, have you seen much of my sister? I am wondering how she … fares, given her state last night."

"No." Indigo shakes her head. "She told Mr. Weiss that she was feeling poorly and she has not left her room since last night. I gather she's taken … ill, Miss." The Aelfin stands beside the bed, fidgeting her hands for a moment before clasping them behind her back.

"Then … " The poodle returns her gaze, and her eyes look worried. "… I should go to comfort her. Indigo, prepare my robes. And fetch for me my box that I brought with me from Caroban. There are some items within I would show my sister."

A little while later, a dressed and reasonably presentable poodle walks down the halls of her manse to her sister's suite. At the door, one of the house guards stands attentively, in ornamental uniform with a saber at his side. At Elise's approach, he salutes, but remains where he is, blocking the entrance.

Elise nods her head to her guard, needing not to salute given he is but hired help. A polite and appropriately respectful nod will do. "I have come to speak with my sister. Do step aside," she commands the guard in the best calm and authoritative voice she can manage at present.

"My lady," the guard begins, not quite masking his uneasiness, "my lady Katherine has stated that she is feeling quite poorly, and she has asked that she see no visitors."

"Nonsense. I am her sister, and head of this household. I … " She eyes the guard carefully as if judging his willingness to stand in her way. "… will not be kept away while my sister suffers so. Do stand aside."

"My lady," he tries again. "She really felt it best that she see … no one. Until she is recovered." His tail twitches nervously. "Please, my lady."

Elise closes her eyes and reaches a hand to brush back her hair again, looking annoyed though attempting to ease her countenance. He is after all one of her guards, and despite his stubbornness, deserves no great rebuking for his steadfast defense of the door. "Very well. Though I shall return before sundown. If my sister calls for me, then have her know I will be with Tremaine somewhere upon the grounds," she tells him.

Irritation proves an easier emotion to contend with than fear or self-loathing, and the day goes by fairly quickly, while Tremaine informs Lady Elise of the state of financial and other affairs in the de Bellefeuille household of late. It appears that Katherine has done a fine job of managing their finances, including various investments. He does not ask, nor does anyone else, what the two ladies discussed on the previous evening. And Lady Katherine does not call for her sister.

Elise does return again before sundown, and she finds that the guard reports much the same. Her sister is ill and she wishes no visitors – including Elise. Unwilling to abandon a problem, and being quite stubborn herself, the lame poodle makes her way to the stables at night. She considers that Katherine has not been able to see her newest acquisitions and that that may prove an advantage to winning an audience with her hateful sibling. So she makes ready, preparing her mount for what she suggests is a night ride, and being sure to provide a rest for her leg.

The groom frowns and shakes his head as he saddles Secrets, muttering about dark nights and broken necks, but he does as he's told, and a leather crafter on Caroban had tailored a special saddle to accommodate Elise's leg. Riding is still tricky at best, with her right leg straight out in a cast, but she manages.

A single pass over her sister's window reveals it to be shut, and this in turn presents a problem for the mounted poodle. The officer attempts to direct Secrets to wing his way back in front of the and to hover there, letting its intense wing beats disrupt the air. For the moment this is Elise's plan, that the sound of her mount's buffeting wings are enough to draw attention without undue strain on her own part.

Despite his rider's urgings, either the Drokar cannot comply or does not understand her meaning. The winged Drokar makes a few close passes by the window, shaking the slats of the shutters, but doesn't hover.

Secret's inability or unwillingness to hover confuses an already annoyed and mentally exhausted Elise. The solider decides to abandon flight all together and directs Secrets to land, then guides him over by Katherine's window.

The Drokar snorts and flutters his wings as he comes to a neat landing on the lawn, before folding them up against his side, bearing his rider to the space beneath her sister's second-floor window.

The rider of the fantastic Drokar reaches to her robes and from a pouch at her side removes two sugar cubes. The first she flings with some force at the shut window, the second she offers to Secrets with a small smile.

The Drokar whickers, then laps at the morsel. Above, the shutters seem to rattle for a moment, then are still again. Maybe she only imagined it, or it was the wind.

Not about to give up so easily as she did earlier, Elise gathers a few more cubes. Some she leaves in her left hand to feed Secrets should he worry over tossed snacks, the rest she tosses at the window, one by one.

After the fourth one, the shutters fly open. "Go – " an irritated Katherine starts to say, and then her voice stops, as she finds herself staring down at Elise, open-mouthed.

Elise, who had been waiting for this very moment, quietly offers another cube to Secrets as she speaks, "Some dreams are real, my sister, but some can never be." Her words hold the tinge of apology, and of something else perhaps only a few people that Elise would consider close would notice. Sadness. But a hurt, longing sort that does not seem entirely fit to the matters of the night before.

The poodle at the window drops her hands to rest on the casement, her eyes running over the form of the winged Drokar silently. After a few minutes, she turns to look at her sister. "Then you did not intend to… ?" Her voice trails off, leaving most of the question unspoken.

"No, Katherine, it … it cannot be," answers Elise. Her head shakes and then she glances off into the darkness. "Did you truly believe that … I … would … ?"

"Oh, Elise," Katherine says, the soft words falling to the ground. "I don't … you might've said something!" she adds suddenly, in a more normal tone of voice. "In any case, come back inside. I feel quite ridiculous talking to my own sister at the casement. You can… " The white poodle glances at her sister's leg, then says, "meet me in the downstairs parlor." She prepares to shutter the window again.

With her sister away from the shutters Elise lowers her head some, feeling a weight upon herself flow from her much as she sighs there, relieved. "Praise be to You that guide us all, thank you," she whispers to the heavens. Another sugar cube is offered, and then she directs Secrets back to the stables.