Daphne wasn't quite sure what she felt as she held the note from Deorla. Although she couldn't read much at all, she knew from the expressions of others, and the absence of Deorla, what the contents were.
Deorla had sneaked off without any sort of farewell. Likely to bring less trouble on them all. But she knew that wouldn't make it any easier.
Her first impulse was to find Furley. To make sure he did nothing foolish. She would be lying if she said this note didn't bring a small measure of relief. Furley had told her he planned on challenging the Elf, and taking Deorla's place if he had to. She told him exactly what she thought of that, and he had agreed. It was a bad idea. Yet he was still going to do it. "This is part of what makes it so the Company needs you like we do. Even when it's a terrible idea, you'd do anything you feel is right, for something or someone you care about,"she thought to herself. But there was no way she'd say those words. She knew it would make no difference, and even if she didn't mean it in a way to argue him into changing his mind, she felt he would take it as such anyway.
That day, the day that Elf came a'knocking, she'd been just getting over some ridiculous illness. A cold most likely. But a nasty one which left her somewhat out of the loop, though she'd been standing there, watching it unfold. Though she tried to pay attention, she couldn't make sense of much. She still couldn't, days later, for the life of her understand why they allowed some poke-ear to order any of them around. Much less force them to make some sort of trade? Or perhaps she'd misheard some of it. She knew she completely forgot other moments.
Her head hurt. The blasted cold still wasn't quite gone. Furley could pretty much have been anywhere. If he wanted company, or someone to speak to, he would seek that out. She'd been following him around too much over the weeks. Although she knew part of that was her job as a personal assistant and another part was her trying to be a good friend, she was beginning to wonder if maybe giving him space was wiser. He'd said in the Hall of Fire that he wanted to sit by himself and that had caused her to realize how she'd interrupted him when he was alone. She only hoped he didn't do anything stupid.
Her second impulse was to find Anastasiar and speak to her about it. She'd wandered about the headquarters and found it quite nearly abandoned. Not that it surprised her. Everyone was likely in Bree-town, or around it. They'd been gone awhile and likely had business to attend elsewhere. Daphne did not feel up to going there. Especially not to bother someone. Ana was likely with Amaken anyhow and Daphne certainly didn't wish to interrupt them more than she already had in the past.
Her head throbbed and caused her to lay down again, staring at the strange shapes she knew to be letters on the page. Deorla had left. It wasn't like she knew her well. And yet...it somehow hurt. Tears filled her eyes and slid down the curves of her nose. She closed her eyes against the world and tried to stop them.
Since when did people ever matter to her like this?
