Flames of Flesh and Spirit
Second Day of the Tenth Month 294 AC
Ever since the day she had awoken her second body Lya was finding new things she could do better, ones she had not even considered when first she took up the task. It was easier to check translations when you could read both texts simultaneously and not just side by side, it was more convenient to deal with the brief commitments of royal socialization without breaking out of some careful arcane observation.
On that day she learned that it was easier to process grief when you had two brains to do it with.
Lya had not spent a lot of time in the Dale, not since the early days when the arcane advancements that would come to characterize the Imperium were yet in their infancy, but it had been her arts that had sown the roots of those changes, it had been Lya not-yet-The-Sage who had looked at the spell that would make any object harder and more durable and seen not just a convenient trick for the caster's use, but something that could change the world.
Something that
did change the world.
Now it was all cinder and ash, more than that, it was glass melted smooth and arcane amalgams. Yet her voice did not falter, nor her wit fail as she spoke to the commander at Westhaven, her purpose did not waver as she walked among the infected, checking the nature of the contagion and how it might be bested.
Heat, fever, turning the body's own defenses against it, but there was nothing of what she most feared to it, nothing soul-deep. She could feel a bit of the tension going out of her shoulders as she healed the soldier under her hand.
Filled with renewed purpose she turned to Tyene. "I think we can do this as long as the quarantine holds. We will have to keep pouring leshy and ritual healers in by Gate, but even if everyone in the base gets this thing twice over we have enough healers to stamp the fire out..."
"As long as it does not catch on the outside," her friend said, gaze uncommonly grim. "All it takes is some fool doing a runner or someone being exposed by accident."
"As soon as they get out of range of the base's Uncertainty Wards they can be divined, this is not an illness you can find anywhere else in the world." Lya paused thoughtfully. "Whoever did this is not an expert in plagues thankfully, either that or they did not much care for this part of their plan so long as the main thrust of it worked out."
"Hey now, none of that," Tyene said with a sharpness that likely surprise the officers in the room. "The enemy can still screw up, they are not all-powerful. Take it from a Sandviper, fortunes can turn around in a flash."
There were a few more smiles then but Lya could not bring herself to join in.
"What's the matter," the question was not said aloud this time, astute as Tyene ever was.
"Valeria was at Everfire Dale," Lya replied, unable to hold back the truth of it anymore.
"She is gone, dead."
"But you can just bring her back though, right?" her friend noted as the two of them continued to look over supply plans that for the quarantined base until enough healing could be provided.
"Her? Of course I can bring her, but I cannot bring everyone back. It feels like..."
"If you say it feels wrong to give her the privilege of coming back I swear I will find one of those salted cod they feed the troops with around here and I will hit you with it." The threat sounded somehow all the more serious for the absurdity of the content.
"She is a skilled researcher and artificer. That in itself would be cause to bring her back, nevermind that she is your daughter, sister... whatever. No one in their right mind would blame you for it and so I am hoping you are yourself in your right mind."
"You sure know how to comfort people, don't you?" It was only when she noticed the odd looks of the officers that Lya realized she had said it aloud, the sarcasm of the words tinged with deep fondness
"Everyone knows you should not ask Dornishmen for comfort, prickly bastards that we are," Tyene shot back and this time Lya did laugh a little.
***
Valeria woke with a start, a spell already on her lips as soon as the light of revival had faded. "What... oh damn, where am I?" She glanced at the sun already low in the sky. "Looks like I did not make it."
It was not a question, but Lya still nodded somberly. She wanted to say she was sorry, but she was not entirely sure what for.
"I don't suppose Gendry did then? I told him not to go out there when the explosions started, but the boy would run at a balor with a rusty hammer given the chance!"
It was Tyene who replied simply. "No one did, not from the Dale."
For a long moment the incarnate stood in silence then she squared her shoulders and said only. "I'll see what I can do to help here then." As she passed Lya she gave her a surprising hug, brief but fierce. "It will be better, we will
make it better, you'll see."
For her part Lya returned the hug in silence, unable to agree aloud yet, but not inclined to disagree either. She turned her thoughts instead to the dark haired son of Robert Baratheon. She shared no bond with him, no special kinship, but unless she was very much mistaken he would not refuse the call.
What do you wish to see next?
[] Gendry interlude
[] The pacification of Qohor
[] Write in
OOC: Though it does technically cost money to raise people I do not think we need a vote for raising named characters and it just flowed better this way. 
