"Oh," she says, in a small voice.

"... Do you know if it was just me, or if he -" she closes her eyes and shakes her head, looking like she might start crying. "Why am I even asking, I know the answer, he was ranting about us ruling the city forever. Of course he dragged it down, too."

"Yeah."

"Fucker," she hisses. "Do you know if anyone else...?"

"Survived out there? Doubt it. It was pretty nasty."

She tries to form a word, but it comes out as a pained, furious whimper. Instead she closes her mouth and inhales in a stifled half sob. After a pause, she tries again.

"Okay," she says, sounding anything but. "Okay. Is there - is this castle safe from the, the spellfray effects, is there anything you need, anything I need to do...?"

"The castle seems like the sanest part of the city. It sent me breakfast." He waves vaguely at the tray, over on the other side of the bed. "I'm fine."

She nods. "Good."

Then brings a hand up to her mouth to stifle the sobs that soon follow.

...yeah.

He leans his sword against a wall and gets up and goes to stand by the window and stare out it. His clothes shimmer and reshape themselves neatly into something in the vicinity of respectable.

The once-sleeping princess is just going to quietly cry, that sounds like the thing to do.

Outside the window, the city has stopped smoking, at least. But that's about all that can be said for it, really. It was probably lovely, once. Now it's half collapsed, covered in grime and moss and with its canals an ugly shade of green and filled with refuse and bits of rubble. Before Siran even got to it. The parts of the city that he destroyed are - well, they're very evident. He did a lot of damage.

... Is that building moving?

...is it?

It's hard to tell, because it's doing it very slowly, but it seems to be slowly righting itself, straightening up from the angle it had tilted to.

Now that he knows to look for it, other buildings are doing it, too. One is carefully reforming itself from rubble.

"Huh."

Sniffle.

"Mm?"

"Your city appears to be gradually unfucking itself."

Sniffle. "Great, I can be queen of an empty city, that sounds fabulous -" she hiccups a little. "- sorry, I'm sorry, you didn't deserve that."

He huffs a wry vestige of a laugh. "That's debatable."

"You saved me," she points out, sniffling. "I'd still be fast asleep with my stalker peeking at me through the windows calling me his bride if you hadn't of come along. I - kind of don't want to be a bitch at you. Even if you might debatably deserve it."

"Well, fair enough. What's your name? I'm Siran."

"I'm Ivethis." She gives him a watery smile. "Hi."

He smiles back. "Hi. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too. ... Adjusting for circumstance, I mean."

Snort. "Yeah."

She sniffles again, and scrubs at her eyes.

"Why'd you even come into a cursed city? Not that I'm complaining."

"I was in a bad mood and wanted to fight something."