The girl with tired eyes (Carmen)

Sarah sits across from me; brown hair tousled from sleep, staring intently at a scrap of paper. “What's wrong?” Maddie mouths to me as she passes behind her, I shrug. “Sarah, what are you reading?” I ask leaning over the table, careful not to knock over the pot of coffee between us. “Report.” She says simply not looking up. “What kind of report?” My sister asks looking over her shoulder. “An important one. It's from Lanriael I'll explain later.” She goes to get up, grabs the paper and the remains of her breakfast and goes upstairs. Normally Sarah isn't involved with Lani’s reports, if anything that'd be the kind of thing Everan would be notified of, granted its something important. Sarah hasn't been sleeping well lately either, maybe that has something to do with it. I'll look into that later. “Keep an eye on her for me while I'm out.” I whisper to Maddie in passing and go to get dressed but she stops me “Where are you going?” Maddie looks at me intently “To find Lani, I want to know what's in that report.” Maddie nods in understanding “I’ll keep an eye on her, don't worry about it. You have my word.” We shake hands in agreement and she leaves me to get dressed.

Walking into my room I find Sarah sitting at the desk overlooking the window frantically writing things down. I tap her shoulder and kneel down “Will you please tell me what's going on?” She turns and looks at me with a sad expression. She looks exhausted and takes a breath-

-“No.”

I frown “Why not? Not even a little bit?” Sarah sighs “Fine. It involves Everan’s sister that's all I’ll say. Oh, and some unrelated stuff about Valanwood.” Ev’s sister? Why the heck would Lani be talking about Everans dead sister? “Thanks for telling me that. You had me really worried for a second.” I laugh nervously as the results of my prodding had dispelled one set of worries and brought up another. Quickly I get dressed and find my keys before walking over to the Cohen’s.

I find Lani sprawled out on the living room floor looking through documents and sit down next to her “So what's the deal with the report you sent Sarah?” Lani looks up from her task “What? You mean the one about Valanwood? I always send her those, she's Bosmer I thought she might at least want to know what's going on in her home country.” She explains while organizing a series of papers into a file then pauses and sits up at my sigh of frustration. “I meant the one about Ev’s sister.” Lanriael stops and stares at me before going into the other room. She comes back with a cream coloured file kept together with binder clips and opens it, handing me a copy of the paper she gave Sarah. “They found some new evidence in the murder, though the case has been closed for years. It's a sensitive topic for Everan and so I gave a copy of this to everyone in our friend group so they'd know not to bring it up. I must have forgotten to give you one. We’ve both been busy. Sorry about that, Cam.” I quickly read the paper, I never knew the details of Leah’s death, only the general situation and the impact it had on the rest of Everans childhood. I accept Lanriaels apology, as it's true, we've both been busy lately. She hands me a picture of Leah before she died, and it's strange, she doesn't look like her brother very much, except for the same tired eyes. She has brown hair, tan but slightly ashy skin and orange, almost red eyes. After thinking about it for a minute I come to the conclusion her appearance makes sense as Everan has Dunmer blood on both sides, his grandmother on his father's side, and his grandfather on his mother's side. If anything Everan is the odd one out with blonde hair and blue-green eyes. “It was generally accepted that Leah was murdered and they did have a substantial amount of evidence but recently more was uncovered during an interrogation.” Lani interrupts my thoughts. “Look at her, the girl looks marked for death doesn't she?” I stare at the image, her features are striking, really. Her expression looks devoid of all life, as if in the short time she’d been alive all life had been drained from her. I hand the image back to Lani as it had become unbearable to look at. “I don't know why it particularly resonated with Sarah though, you'll have to ask her that yourself. Maybe she saw some of herself in the image, if I were her I would have. Sarah and Everan, they've had it rough. No wonder they look so tired all the time.” Lani goes to put the file away, coming back with a cup of tea. I give her a look and she sips it obnoxiously, causing me to laugh “What? I've been working on this since five in the morning!” I grin “Well then, you deserve tea!”

After chatting for a while longer I bid Lanriael goodbye and decide to head home. Stopping at a market on the way after remembering we need milk and a few other groceries, and generally getting distracted. When I get home I find Maddie and Sarah sitting on the carpet playing chess, a favorite game of Sarah's. “Ha! I'll take your knight!” Sarah exclaims capturing Maddies only knight left. Maddies face scrunches up in annoyance and in retaliation she takes a pawn. “Good luck!” I say putting the food away “She's never lost, not even to Yuuri and Everan!” Maddie gasps in faux surprise and Sarah laughs, causing me to poke my head in. She seems happier now, but still looks at me with the same warm, if world weary green eyes.

“...Checkmate!”

I wrote this after realizing I never write from Carmens point of view and it would be a nice change. This is also a reminder that the EU has changed cookies features and things like that so anyone in the EU make sure you know about that? There should be a notification from Google about what information is collected, I'm not sure. Who should be next on the not very often written list? Lucie is coming (spoiler it relates to her paranoia and schizophrenia and Adriana trying to get Kad out of a tree) and Lani but I'm not sure who should be next. Olivia? Isabelle B? Abigail? Kay or Athena? Who knows!

Until next time,

Max