"Have you lived in the Hollows your whole life?" Pyrrha makes small talk with the strawberry lion at her side. The short tour she's taking @Karsa on is between points of interest and the newly crowned Sovereign wants to keep things from growing quiet. Even if the talk itself is kept casual, kept shallow. Anything was better than silence and all the while she could watch him, she could see how he answered. How he handled himself- this was a chance to watch Karsa and see just who he was.

She leads them towards the ocean but stops and stands just where the grassy dunes begin to roll down into pristine sand. A spot where the ocean waves never reach except in the harshest of storms, but the sight of the open water fills the view ahead of them. "Is it weird I missed this awful smell?" She says of the strong fishy odor that fills up the air everytime a breeze pushed up across the waves and towards them. The sentiment seems silly but at her heart of it there's sincerity to her tone. There's relief. For the first time in years she feels like she can breath and have a moment to be. She's home.

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the young savante had made the trek to the cove after giving @Pyrrha ♔ and her brother some time to settle back into their home, into their new roles as sovereigns. thankfully their good relations seem to continue and pyrrha is there at the borders not long after karsa calls out for an audience, bringing him deeper into the cove. it's quite pretty, he had to admit. "yeah, i was born there and i've never left for longer than a few nights." though many of his siblings and family seemed to enjoy the adventure that came with stepping outside of amaryllis, the same pull had never quite reached karsa. "what about you? were you born here in the cove?" karsa remembered hearing that the tollaires had a claim on this land, but whether it was by birth or by conquest later on, he had no idea. their father's ascension had been before his time.

karsa follows a step behind her dutifully, allowing pyrrha to weave through caladan's trails and admiring the vastly different landscape all the way. he's only been here one other time - when the woman drauhir had defeated was challenging for the land, defeating another woman for it. they settle in a spot that seems half grass and half sand, smells like ocean and fish and the trees. it's an interesting combination, to be sure. not the worst that karsa's ever smelled though.

"probably not," he starts, shooting her an amused smile. "i think it's about the same as me saying i miss the smell of the caves when i've been gone for too long." the smell of sharp minerals and heavy dampness was as home to karsa as salt and sea was to pyrrha.

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They're alike in that way then- born to their respective prides, raised up in them to know them as well as could be. "I was born here, I watched my mother build this pride up upon her back through her hard work and love." She sounded immeasurably glad, relieved, to be back home here. Before this sojourn outside of Caladan Pyrrha had rarely spent too long away from the coast and all of it's familiar scents and sounds. "Do you hope for the same for your children? To be born in the Hollows?" On the surface any passerby without context would think the question to be casual chit chat. But it's far from it- Pyrrha is fishing. @Karsa is one of the sons of Alexander Savante, and the first choice for Pyrrha in this marriage pact she and her brother have arranged. She wants to know his expectations, his wants for the future. If there's any red flags, if there's any chance of turbulence she needs to sniff it out before things are finalized.

This was what it was to have a home, for a place to be home. You miss even the less pleasurable parts of it. For her she could not wait for the first impossibly hot day of summer and to feel her paws scorched on the sands again. She was just now remembering how troublesome it was to get all of the sand out of your fur before you crawled into bed. "I'm finding so many things I didn't realized I missed so badly. I guess going away isn't a bad thing all the time." But- she looks his way with a cocked brow and knowing face. "For short spells that is." And not because someone took over your home.

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he's quiet as @Pyrrha ♔ explains. a pride built by a woman, now led again by a woman of the same family - the world set right once again. "she'd be glad to see you leading this place again, i think." karsa realizes how it must sound for him, someone who's never even met the woman, to be making such proclamations. "i just mean that i would be, if i was her." he adds after a beat of silence. "ideally, i'd like them to be in the hollows, yes. i would think i'd like to see them often..." karsa starts carefully, gauging pyrrha's reaction to that out of the corner of his eye. truthfully, he has no idea what he wants as a parent, the thought of becoming a father has felt so far off. "although as long as i can see them as often as i want, wherever they may be, i care more about their safety."

karsa thinks after he's spoken though - of his future children being born here or anywhere else and it makes his heart pang. would they learn to love the mother as the savante did? for a second karsa wants to warn pyrrha, knowing the impending betrothal that now ties her and her future children to his family and their ways - perhaps even to him directly. karsa tunes back in to what she says last. "how long has it been?" the woman that drauhir had taken the cove from had ruled it for some time, at least. how long before that had pyrrha been on her own?

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Would Sunder be happy? A bit yes. But Pyrrha's heart doesn't think Sunder would be as proud as @Karsa imagined she would be of her. Caladan was supposed to be Pyrrha's, not her brother's. She was Sunder's heir and all Pyrrha has managed to claim is losing half an ear and begin Sovereign to her brother King. In time, in time maybe she'd be worthy of the praise.

She maintains a calm look, alternating been him and the water throughout their conversation. She is for the most part unreactive. She is thinking, she is deep in her conscious figuring out just how things would work with him. If it is important to be a primary presence in their lives, she would not stop that. It is an easy way to win favor with him. "I'd like to see your cubs with you in the Hollows." He seems like he'd be a good father in her estimation. A rare thing- but the Savante seem to be a family of good men, ones that she would want her own sons to grow up around instead of her brother and whatever children Drauhir ends up bringing into the world. "They'd end up having plenty of half siblings to play with right?" Another vague question meant to dance around and figure him out.

His next question though, she can't keep the calm look in her face. She's hit with a jolt of realization like a slap in the face. "A year." A full year. The weight of it hadn't hit her until she said it out loud. That's not an insignificant chunk of her life- this all comes down upon her like a wave. Color and emotion shift out of her face and she looks blankly out over the rolling waves. They seemed the same to her, but have they changed? Has more of the land shifted and eroded? Is it all really the same still or what has she missed?

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