Set between Hunter and Hunted and What You Asked For.
The room was a good size, and generously decorated. A desk, with numerous drawers, tucked into one corner on the far side from the door. A huge bed, with rich satin covers, in a crimson colour, was placed by it in another. It's huge headboard looked of another age - a heavy expensive metal beauty of criss-crossing lines and twisting painted in a light cream. A fireplace, lit and hot poured light and heat into the room, baring a centerpiece position. Before it spread the rest of the room - a large hearth rug, a cushioned sofa, and a mighty chest of drawers. There was also a chaise lounge, and an armchair by the bed, and it was in this armchair that Philomel van der Aart sat, leaning back and face creased with worry, waiting for her daughter, who was in the bed, to wake up.

In her hand she had a large brass tankard, that was full of a good stout beer, a brew now proudly perfected over the past five years of the ladies of the Gilded Lily fortress. Her eyes never left Celandine's sleeping body, and they had not for a long period of time since she had begun breathing once more. Once Vaeron had come in, offering the beer and saying that the Huntsman, who had saved her daughter's life, had gone. The same man that Philomel had dragged from his home country of Alerar as her prisoner all because she did not care that he had let a serum be placed in his body. A serum that was not of nature, but of science, which Philomel now feared more than hated.

How much she had learnt in the past few days. Closing her eyes briefly she rubbed her temples, remembering how it had been he would had created the potion to bring her back alive. In Vaeron's quiet words:

“Princess, what is the difference when it comes down to it between herbalism and what he did. There was more heat, more solutions and more equipment with things that could only be explained by foreign words, but what is that? It is just another tongue that still saved your daughter.”

“Our daughter,” Philomel had whispered in reply, but Vaeron had winced before walking out. She could now hear him talking in a low voice to the only other male person who was a permanent member of the fortress population. Tarrimar, an elf of Raiaera. The two had a lot in common and Philomel highly suspected something stronger was forming between them.

Willingly she had given up her bedroom for her daughter - who would not when she had recently been turned to stone? Now the young child lay, gently breathing in a way that had eased over the last four hours. And still Philomel had not moved from her seat, only drunk slowly. Food she had been offered but not touched lay on a table nearby, Veridian himself, her ever loving companion for life and literal soul partner, lay snoozing at the end of the bed, a good foot away from the petite faun. His small fox form was not a distraction for her today however.

A shudder ran through the girl and the faun gasped before leaning forwards, eyes wide as she bent over the bed. Softly Celandine's lips moved and she let out a quiet wail as she shifted over onto her side.

Philomel was then up from the seat she had not moved. Her body tense she replied on the strength of her will and her legs to hold her as she stared at the form that began to moan. Slowly moving this way at that, a shiver here and a shiver there, a grunt. A mumble and stumble.

The older faun gripped the sheets of the bed and looked on with wide eyes. She whispered a prayer under her breath as the form shook one last time - then fell still. Then suddenly it gasped, air rushing into its lungs, shoulders moving back and arching the back so the torso was sent thrust into the air.

Gasp!

It lasted four, long, decisive seconds.

Then it wafted out of her and she was left there, flat body, breathing regularly and her heartbeat - thud, thud, confident and loud filling the room. Constant. Heavy. Real.

Alive.