The Two Swans

“But why won't you stay?!”

By Deianira's count, that was the fifth - and most dramatic - repetition of the day. And for the fifth time, she gave the same response, “Mama, it's been six months. I told you I'd fill in for Annabel, but she had the baby four months ago; she's more than ready to get back on stage.” And I'm more than ready to get out of Almas, she added privately. Where once she'd expected to take over the Two Swans Playhouse when her parents retired, now she couldn't wait to get away. She'd thought coming home would help - Dalav had never been here, there was nothing anywhere in the theatre, or in the city, to remind her of anything they'd shared - and in part it had; she still missed him but not with the sharp, overwhelming grief that had driven her back home to begin with. But worrying about Thomas stealing Victor's girlfriend, or Lily deliberately upstaging Gemma by wearing the red dress instead of the blue one, seemed so silly now. Can't put a chick back in the egg, as Dalav might have said. Well, she hadn't fallen in love with him for his silver tongue, but he'd be right as usual anyway.

She dropped her pen, crossed the office, and hugged her mother. “I can't stay, Mama, you know that. But it's not like I'm leaving today.” She smiled. “It'll take Annabel at least a month to learn her lines.”

The distraction worked, as it always would. Iloura Sunstorm loved her daughter dearly, but the Two Swans Playhouse was her first-born child. “She'll say them in her sleep in two weeks or she'll be out the door,” she snapped. “In fact, I think we'll put her in rehearsal today instead of you.” She patted Deianira's back absently, and started toward the door.

Deianira waited till the office door closed, then threw herself back into the desk chair with a sigh. She ought to get back to revising Stefan and Arabelle, updating the old standby to reflect the current city gossip and replacing the alchemist with a tinkerer, but she'd found it impossible even before her mother's latest dramatic outburst. Just another round of revisions, followed by rehearsals and costuming and staging; a routine she'd known all her life. But since coming home she'd felt itchy, restless - “the Sunstorm blood”, her father would say, understanding but also smug that the bloodline had skipped Iloura; Cyrion only needed to worry about his wife's artistic temperament, not whatever inherited quirk sparked unexpected wildness in their daughter.

Sighing, she shoved the script aside and pulled out Dalav's map. They'd spent a year planning the route to the River Kingdoms, although they'd been planning it from much nearer Cheliax. Deianira still wasn't sure why Dalav had fixed on that as their goal, and maybe she was a fool to be following her dead lover's dream, but without any plans other than not staying tied to the Two Swans, it was as good a destination as any. She had enough coin saved to travel in at least minimal comfort, and she'd never known a wayside tavern that wouldn't give an itinerant performer a seat by the fire. Approaching this as another role to be costumed and equipped, she began scratching out a list of things to take, a little bubble of excitement pushing out both grief and irritation.