Elena was simply alight with giddiness and excitement. To be here in Lorendale with people like the Scorzas...it was all such a change from what they had to endure in dreadful Dresmond and Elena knew that Myla would be feeling much the same in that regard. Of all the Eldouirs she'd spoken to recently she got the feeling that nearly all of them were missing Lorendale. Missing home.

They moved into the parlor and Elena's expression was as if coming into the most incredible room she'd ever seen. Really she was just delighted by all the 'Lorendale-ness' of it. It was a temptation to brush her fingers along everything in the room just to prove it was all real, but she managed to be polite enough to keep her hands to herself.

As Cezar turned to address her Elena smiled brightly. "That sounds absolutely wonderful," she agreed with a little bite to her lip. She then would reach for Tallis and slip her hand into the Scorza's if the woman let her, intertwining their fingers and playfully tugging her to come and sit beside her on the larger of the couches. Elena moved to sit in the center and when Cezar would come back with the drinks she'd pat the seat beside her in hopes of being nestled between the two siblings.

Tallis closed her eyes as Cezar kissed the top of her head. How long had they waited for this moment? How long had she been beside herself with frustration, ready to rot the world while Cezar held them steady? This moment would exist without him—nor woud it be worthwhile. Tallis’s eyes sparkled as she looked back up at him with unspoken love and gratitude.

As Cezar Scorza went to fetch the drinks, Tallis eagerly followed Elena Eldouir into the sitting room. She was surprised at first when Elena twined her fingers through hers, but Tallis quickly accepted the gesture. After all, wasn’t this their destiny? To link with the Eldouir and seek liberation?

Tallis curled her feet beneath her, facing Elena with one elbow propped on the back of the couch as she looked at her.

“I didn’t know you could change your face,” Tallis said appreciatively, examining Elena’s features, “Though I suppose there is a great deal I don’t know…” She glanced at @myla with a conspiratorial smirk.

Myla watched the two other women flock together, watched as Cezar did his duty and gave out the glasses. Even if she came across as a cold-hearted and perhaps bitchy woman, she gave him a small smile and thanked him for the glass. She had some manners after all.

"Well, as you know we have been keeping ourselves rather busy to the south." Myla wasn't sure if the havoc she had most recently wrecked on the legion at the border had reached everyone's ears. "And the east..." A small smirk lifted her lips, because Arynn Frey was new. Perhaps too new for anyone here to have heard the news just yet about what had happened to the kingdom who loved to enchant things... like those damn collars. "Elena and I had heard from our cousin about his frequent trips here... and those he has met along the way. We thought we'd come take a little trip. Meet the Scorza's he had found. See what exactly has changed since we left."

"Hoping perhaps you all could fill in some of the details we are still missing or others find too... controversial to talk to strangers about. And perhaps we can answer any specific questions as well..." Her eyes flickered to Elena.

Elena buzzed with positive energy. Tallis was receptive, beautiful, and magical. To be a room with other gifteds who were not her family members had it's own kind of thrill and Elena could nearly taste the magical quality in the room.

She beamed at Tallis as she commented about her new little trick. "No one does, really," she explained. "I only just mastered it, a developing quality to the manipulation of matter I can already do," she said, a bit of excited pride in her voice for having mastered this new technique.

She accepted the glass from Cezar with a smile, even a bit of flirtation in the expression though she was attempting to keep that part of her personality to a minimum. She wouldn't want to insult their new acquaintances after all. She hoped they could become friends. She took a sip of her drink, humming in approval at the way it played over her tongue and down her throat and her free hand closest to Tallis started to draw absent scribbles on the woman's knee as Myla began to speak, giving a brief overview of where they had been since they left.

She smiled at the casual mention of the east, where they had just come from, and as Myla's eyes moved to meet hers Elena gave her cousin a gracious little smile. "Yes. Please. What is it that you wish to know?" she asked, willing to offer information in order to further gain their trust before asking much of them in return.

Tallis was captivated by the two Eldouir women. Not in the way of hero-worship, but in a strange mixture of covetous envy and unhinged excitement. She picked apart every word, every line, for clues and hidden meaning. The overt mention of exploits out east had Tallis raising an eyebrow of interest, but she didn’t care to interrupt Myla and Elena just yet. She accepted Elena’s explanation of matter manipulation with a gleeful grin, her own gift itching at her fingertips as if to prove its worthiness in the face of greatness. Tallis did not shy from Elena’s hand as it rested on her knee, though she did glance at Cezar momentarily. She was glad for the closeness, and such… unconventional displays were not out of character considering their family—or so she’d heard. Tallis, an anarchist ideologue through and through, was not one to police or judge another’s behavior.

“Whatever questions you might have we’d be happy to answer,” Tallis responded to Myla with easy authority, sipping from her glass, “Though admittedly the ins and outs of Lorendale’s social circles interest Cezar and me very little. The political is far more enticing, but in any case…as a place to start…” Tallis’s eyes turned to Cezar, an electric smile lighting her features.

“You talk of your exploits to the south and east—which I would like to hear more about, of course—but what is it you have intended in the north?” Tallis looked at Elena and Myla now, still with the same excitement, “Could it be that all the Eldouirs are finally making their way home?”

It was delivered as a tease, but was as serious a question as any.

[Skipping Myla for this round <3 ]

They wouldn't be able to understand it but Elena envied them in ways they might not expect. Being an Eldouir meant that just your name could strike fear into anyone but it had also led to their departure into Dresmond which felt more like exile most of the time in spite of their successful conquering of the land and people there. Elena envied them that they remained here in Lorendale, that they could work under the radar without having a target on their back all the time. There were benefits of course to being born into her family, benefits she enjoyed, but that didn't mean that their weren't downsides too.

At Tallis' question she gave a subtle guilty look to Myla before her attention was turned to Cezar who offered information on some of the gifted happenings since they left. It was beyond disappointing to see it all falling apart since their departure but she wasn't surprised, not by what was going on without them nor about the royals lack of assistance for their kind.

She tried to decide how best to offer information to the them, attempting to be the political queen she claimed herself to be. The Eldouir had always lived in a way that prioritized their own family over anyone else, even other gifteds, but that didn't mean that they didn't value gifted rights or that their past choices dictated their future ones. "I can't be sure as to our definitive return to Lorendale though I can tell you it is desired by most, if not all of us to do so. Dresmond offers little benefit or satisfaction. Lorendale is where our hearts are." She still had no idea exactly how pissed Hiram was going to be at her and Myla for simply leaving after the wall attack, nor did she have any idea that soon enough he'd be following right along with a handful of others in tow as well.

"Gifted history has left much to be desired for countless years and those who govern Lorendale have never fully supported us though we've been here at least as long as they have. If it's clear that they don't intend to value gifteds and give us a chance then we have to take it for ourselves. Drystan mentioned some sort of...alliance between our families," she continued. "What is your vision for the future? What are you hoping for?" she asked, looking first at Cezar and then to Tallis. What was it that they wanted from an alliance with the Eldouir?

Elena’s words gave her reason to hope. Perhaps it was a foolish delusion, but Tallis saw no future for gifted revolution without the Eldouir. They were too big a piece of Lorendale’s history, too emblematic of gifted supremacy to be erased entirely. And the fact they might return…it could mean the moment had finally come.

“Liberation,” Tallis said without hesitation, as if the word had been waiting, perched on her tongue, “There is no reason the gifted race should be subjugated by our lessers. There should be no peaceful coexistence that requires gifted to surrender their power to satisfy the weak. Scorza have been forced to only survive, and have been kept from one another to do so.” Tallis looked at Cezar then, unhealed pain shifting like a shadow in her eyes.

“I will see to a world where no gifted should have to limit themselves. To be kept from their kind in hiding. And together…” Tallis looked at Elena and smiled, “I believe we could achieve such a future.”

Myla remained silent at first. The look of guilt from Elena was not shared, because she knew it was herself who had suggested they leave. That they took a trip here. And even if the two of them have had less than ideal situations thus far, Myla had a feeling this here was worth it all. Fuck Remiel. Fuck all of the gifteds who were rolling over and submitting. Again.

“Spoken like a true gifted.” Myla said after a moment of studying Tallis. A small smile on her lips to show her approval of her words. “Hiding is no longer an option we think we should settle for. We’ve walked on eggshells around them for far too long. And for what?” Her hand flicked out, a burst of red from it as it made a sudden image, red and sparking with energy, that she twisted into a collar snapping around a neck. “Fear because they can’t control us, because they weren’t born gifted.” It quickly disappeared.

“Are there more of you? Like you?” Was there other families they needed to pay a visit to?