Visiting the chapel., Visiting the chapel, in hope.

[Holly]

Hazel walked into the chapel, a now familiar, eerie sensation making a chill run up a spine, and the hair on the back of her neck rising. She pulled the cloak she had donned as she left the palace tighter, shivering slightly. She felt the crimson apple she had stolen from the kitchen and put into her pocket, the flesh on her thumb running along the skin. Hazel sighed softly, closing her eyes before looking around for a place to put her offering. Her mother thought putting offerings to the Lystae was useless, that royalty was above that. Her mother had already lost hope in their gods, and Hazel was slowly beginning to doubt her own beliefs, to think her beliefs foolish and crude; a young child's fantasy. But she hadn't given up yet. Not yet, and hopefully never.

[Caoli]

Harlan hovered in the air after Holly, looking wonderously around at the villages. When they finally reached the small chruch, the spirit smiled mysteriously and started humming an old tune.
"Ah, the chapel of the Lystae," he murmured, floating ahead. The ghostly figure stopped at a hidden statue, trying to brush the dirt and ivy vines from its body. Sighing, Harlan bowed his head at the unearthed shrine of Chimae. "The dear Angel... vowing to protect... yet disappearing..."

[Holly]

Hazel stood rigid, her eyes and mind both taking in the dissarray the chapel was in. She bowed her head and sighed through loose lips, her hair falling before her face in a concealing veil. She brushed her hair away, nodding. "All I can do is return day after day, and hope that they'll return one day, to answer the prayers I send." She knelt on one knee, staring at the statue with frail, cold hope in her eyes, that could be banished from her head with one meager word.

[Caoli]

"So, you believe in the Lystae, princess?" Harlan turned to Holly and asked, a bit mockingly. He sighed and put a ghostly hand to his face. "I, for one, do not.. If they were to help, they would have never parted from d'Lanter." A puff of smoke uncurled from his pale lips, revealing how very cold the day actually was. "I stopped coming here years ago, before Vais du North ordered attack. I sensed something was to happen... and here are the gods, slipping from our grasp, just when we might need them. They will not come back until the war has passed, think I."

[Holly]

"I believe. Now I'm begining to believe it's a child's foolish hope of something different, something that would make the world so much easier." Hazel's eyes were cold and hard, and her hands tightened into fists, fingersnails biting into her skin, nearly drawing blood as a cold laugh struck the air, unlike her usual laugh. "Of course, that's what nearly everyone believes. Hopes like this our... irrational, I suppose, in a time like this. But I need something to believe in, even if it is a child's stupid fairy tale." Hazel's voice was emotionless, but bitter and angry feelings burned in her soul and her mind, and she desperately wished the Lystae would come back.

[Caoli]

"Lo! The Lystae are not some foolish child's fairy tale, princess!" Harlan gasped, miming faint by placing a shimmering head over his forehead. He came to consciousness by laughing at his small act. "They are real, as all of us know. Of course, I, like many have lost hope, but you, least of all, should have the sense to think it is but a story. Like I have said, they will come back. I do not know when. Perhaps after the war-to-come passes. But not before. And I shall only start believing when they return."
He glanced at a cracked grandfather clock in the corner, who's hands were stuck on the numbers 5 and 2. He gasped again, then hurriedly flew from the chapel.
"Hurry, princess! You must not be late for your lessons!" He truely did not know whether she had them, or not, but best to take precaution and avoid tardiness at all costs.

[Holly]

Hazel sent him a strange look at him over her shoulder, a vague, odd perplexed look; an expression she could not name. A mix between confusion, coldness, and of course, vagueness. "Fine, we will go." She said, nodding quietly. "Or will you be staying here?" She asked, kneeling to place the apple she had brought as an offering on the floor. She placed the apple where it was visible, biting her lip as her finger-tips brushed against the floor. She straitened up again, walking towards the door and pulling the hood of the gray cloak she wore over her head.