Satira walks in from the Nobles' Sitting Room.

After Satira is let in, the door is closed behind her. The girl is holding Carai (the doll) with one arm, and is wearing her long white dress.

Calisa sits in the single reading chair, bent over a small harp in her lap. Not playing it; just running her hands up and down the strings, checking them. She raises her head as whoever it is is admitted....And loses all the color in her face.

Satira's expression didn't seem to indicate something was wrong, but it does now as she seems Calisa's reaction. "Hi..?" she asks, a bit unsure.

Calisa swallows, forcing normal color back into her cheeks by sheer effort of will. "Hello, Satira." She manages a genuine-seeming smile, laying the harp aside and standing.

"How are you?" Satira asks, relieved by her sister's return to 'normal' behavior. "How are you?" she asks, looking for somewhere to sit, but eventually decides to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of her sister's chair. She keeps the doll in her lap.

Calisa sits back down again, keeping to Satira's lead. "I am...well." The slightest of hesitations. "And you?"

"I'm good as well..." Satira says. She's far enough back from Calisa's chair so she can look at her without raising her head too much. Whatever more she wanted to say, she appeared to have decided to wait on.

Calisa picks the harp back up, running her fingers lightly across the strings to create a ripple of sound. "How are things at Tiras Lorne?" Tight control keeps her feelings out of her voice, but she ceases playing.

Satira watches Calisa's finger as they go over the harp. "Well..." she says. "I miss you... we always seem to stay apart..."

Calisa's eyes brighten with tears. "I know, sister."

Satira bits her lips, staying silent for a few seconds, then asks hesitantly "Can I ask you something?"

Questions can hurt, can even ruin lives; Calisa's learned that all too well. "Yes?

"Nobody will tell me..." Satira begins softly, eyes still not on her sister's. "Why are you held here? Whenever I ask someone they'll just pat my head and say something soothing... I'm not a little baby.. I wish they'd stop treating me as one.."

Calisa is quiet a moment. "For my protection, Satira, in the event those who took me try again." She's sick of lying, and it shows through in her voice, but she continues. "For that reason, you can't talk to anybody except Rennar or Shalayne about this; no one else can be trusted in this matter."

Satira frowns a bit, but she nods. "I won't..." she promises. "When are you coming back?"

Calisa's voice trembles. "I may never be, Satira."

"Why not?" Satira asks softly, "The queen's guard will catch those people.. and bring them to trial... then you can come back." She looks back up to her sister.

Calisa shakes her head. "There's no catching all those of that sort." She spits out the final word. "Darkfriends."

Now it's Satira's turn to lose the color from her face. She holds her doll tight against her, and just stares at her sister, perhaps looking for a sign that she's just kidding.

There is none; Calisa simply looks back at Satira, waiting.

Calisa stands again, walking to the window. Speaking to it, "Satira, you wanted the truth...are you /certain/ you do?" She swings around, face hard.

Satira is taken aback by Calisa's look, probably sensing there's something terribly wrong. She gets up, keeping the doll held tightly to her, and takes a couple of hesitant steps toward her. She nods firmly, apparently trying to convince herself as much as her sister. "I am.."

Calisa's gaze remains fixed on Satira. "Remember what I said; speak to no one of this. All I've left is my life; I have no wish to lose that as well. Satira, what did they tell you of my capture?"

Satira does her best to keep her eye leveled with her sister's as much as she wants to look down again. "They said you were captured by the Whitecloaks..." she says. "And that they... treated you badly..."

Having begun, Calisa forces herself onward. "They may have been Whitecloaks...but they were also Darkfriends. They...they tortured me; they wanted me to take their oath." She stops there, watching for signs of comprehension.

Satira ohs.. she stays silent for a few moments then finally says, maybe some understanding begins to seep in. "Good thing that they got you out in time, then..."

Calisa keeps her voice hard; she's too close to breaking down to permit herself to soften. "There's not been a day I've not wished they did come in time."

Somehow expecting this in her subconcious, all the pieces fall together neatly in Satira's head. Her face become even fainter than it was earlier, when the first notion of DFs was raised, and the doll drops from her hands. She stares at her sister in what might very well be the first expression of horror in her life.

Calisa brought this on herself, but it affects her no less deeply for that. "Satira...no..." Her voice is broken, a mere whisper. "I never wanted to, sister, and I would do anything to have that moment to do again..."

Satira takes a slow hesitant step backwards, her eyes still fixed on her sister. It is obvious she is torn from the inside as to how to react... After all, the girl IS her sister, one who loves her and cares for her... but she also remembers the warnings that how even the people you trust most can turn out to be cruel darkfriends who will stab you in the back.

Calisa flinches from that step back, as unable to look away from Satira as Satira is to look away from her. "I took their oath...But I am /not/ one of them, Satira."

Satira looks almost like she's frozen, not moving a bit. Out of fear. Out of confusion.

Calisa abandons words, instead reaching a hand towards her sister. She’s not quite able to keep the pleading from her eyes, nor a tear from running down her cheek.

The hand reaching toward her seems to be what ends the fight between the two forces. "Don't touch me!" she screams taking a couple of steps backwards, then turns around and runs toward the door. The locked door, which she tries to open frantically.

Calisa does not move for an instant, hand frozen in place. She falls to her knees, trying to see Satira through the tears blinding her. "Please!"

Hearing the shriek through the door, one of the guards sends for Rio.

"Let me out..." Satira cries to the guards outside. "Let me out!"

Her allegiance to the Light. Her home. Her freedom. Rennar. Satira. How many more blows can Calisa take? She lowers her head into her hands, not even noticing when the ward is dropped and the door opened.

Satira is quickly let out, and the door is shut behind her. The doll, Carai, stays where it fell from the girl's arms.

Satira walks out the heavy wooden doors and into the hallway.