{ realigning } and turned into a castle for some towering queen they're unable to know

[ladyquietude]

The inarguable strangeness of the situation dictates two things. First, that it must be discussed- and second, that Petra has no real desire to do so. Knowing that a conversation must happen unfortunately has nothing to do with whether or not one knows precisely how to go about it, and she's uncomfortably aware that Davidias's willingness to put it

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[hisgovernance]

It suggests something about the kind of man Davidias is that he takes this sudden conversational reroute with an expression that is almost completely in stride; he has experienced more disconcerting shifts in the tone of a conversation than this, and only some of them are the fault of his beloved wife.

Also, he's somewhat used to people making statements utterly contradictory in the face of reality, at this point; he's an Alcione knight, these things happen.

So instead of any of the thousand other responses a man in his position could be making, Davidias takes a moment to select the more appropriate option: he settles back into his seat, one eyebrow raised, and with absolutely no judgment in his tone, only an unspoken desire for explanation, says simply: "This castle is never empty of cats."

[ladyquietude]

"In all my time in Deira, I've never seen it so." The pause before she answers and the qualifier are both quite relevant, and Petra resists the urge to fidget with her sewing. The last thing this conversation needs is her pricking her hands with the needle. "Davidias, I feel as if I've gone mad- I had dreams. A month before you returned, when we knew the war was over but not the casualties-"

At this point, while the only other hint she's at all affected by what she says is the gaining speed with which she says it, she resolutely looks away from him to the fire. "I began to have very odd dreams," she says, precisely. "Vivid and consistent and running in counterpoint to my life. As if I were living two at once and only knew them both here, but only dreams."

[hisgovernance]

Davidias pauses, his brows knotting - first in bemusement, and then in memory, as his brain tosses up something he'd almost forgotten from his long years at war. His fingers reach out to brush hers, stilling their nervous motion. "My lady, I'm confused, but I do not think you're going mad." He purses his lips. "There's a great many things I have seen or heard of, and know are real, that are on the face of it much more impossible than dreaming another life." Like Martel existing. Or the grounds secretly containing an invisible portal into another world.

"I knew a drunk man who once thought such a thing was possible," he says, fixing Petra with a somewhat skeptical expression. "Or rather - for some knights, he thought it might be inevitable. He was much more fascinated by the mysteries than myself, but he'd had a great deal to drink and he was prone to imagining the universe was built of long bits of a very peculiar kind of string the gods used to distract their cats." Davidias raises his eyes heavenward briefly. "Very

[ladyquietude]

This pause here contains all the things that Petra might have said about the mental state of church knights as a whole; her expression is sufficiently eloquent, she suspects, particularly to a man who knows her better than anyone.

"Your questionable drinking habits aside, my lord," a little arch, though more tremulous than she'd like, "it seems to be wholly possible, but...there are other reasons it concerns me. I wasn't simply living an entirely different life in my dreams - there was a city, almost like Xanadu, where many of us from varying lands and realities were taken against our will. It was a month before your return that I found myself there, and the castle too."

But not the cats, and Davidias can presumably connect the dots to what she isn't explicitly saying.