3rd person P.O.V ("imé wèlá" my song, Alder's nickname for Tally.)
Alder focus:
Sarah fell asleep very quickly that night even before the biddies had left the room, she had collapsed on her bed, emotionally exhausted, she fell asleep quickly, still in her clothes. The biddies crowded around the bed to change Sarah into her sleep clothes and take her hair down. They tucked her into her bed leaving the blankets loose around her. They knew she was likely to have a nightmare, after the events of the afternoon, and would not want to be restricted if she awoke in the night. The biddies left Sarah's room after closing the curtains and leaving the door lamp on, they filed into their room and went to bed, all of them exhausted.
Sarah slept through the breakfast service the next morning, the biddies eating alone at the table, unable to wake her, the General's chair noticeably empty. Tally arrived 10 minutes after the biddies breakfast service had ended knocking on the exterior door as usual. Devon went to open the door and let red-head in, explaining that Sarah was still sleeping. They quietly showed her to the sleeping General's room, the same room that Tally had woken up in less than a week ago. They closed the door behind her, not having stepped inside the room. Tally slowly stepped up to the bed and sat on it near Sarah's hip, her face was turned towards the door and she was lying on her stomach. "Sarah, sweetie. It's time to wake up. Breakfast is over." Tally said quietly, moving her hand over Sarah's lower back up towards her hair in an effort to wake her wife. Sarah's back muscles tightened under Tally's hand and one of Sarah's hands reached out and grabbed Tally's leg. "It's okay, it's just me." Tally said, trying to calm her down.
"Imé wèlá." Sarah whispered, opening her eyes just enough to see the ends of Tally's hair as her wife leant towards her. She felt Tally's hand rub slowly up her back until she reached the nape of her neck before working its way down again. "That feels nice." Sarah said, opening her eyes fully. She twisted onto her side to look at Tally properly. "What are you doing here? Were you watching me sleep?" she asked, her hand still on Tally's leg.
"Well, we agreed last night that I would spend the morning with you and we would talk,you slept through the breakfast service, and the biddies asked me to wake you up." Tally said quietly. Sarah nodded in understanding and sat up in the bed moving over and patting the space next to her for Tally to sit in. "How are you? Devon said that you were so exhausted last night you fell asleep as soon as you entered the room, they had to change you into your nightdress Sarah, they are worried, especially since you weren't awake for breakfast." Tally said, not having moved from her spot on the bed, prefering to see her wife.
"It's just." Sarah started. "I was confronted with something yesterday afternoon that I have not thought about in over 100 years, something I never want anyone to have to think about." she said looking Tally in the eyes, afraid that if she broke eye contact she would break down again. "After the events of the Bellweather wedding, you discovering that Scylla Ramshorn could very well be a Spree agent and Charvel Bellweather being found dead with her vocal cords cut out" Sarah said, a wobble in her voice that Tally had not hear before. Tally reached over the blankets to squeeze her hands, letting her speak.
"I fear that one of my old enemies has returned. I am not ready to face them again, or the possibility that they have been growing like the vermin they are underneath my nose for the last century." Sarah tore her eyes away from Tally and focused on the only decoration adorning the walls of the room. After she had built the general's quarters she had created a portrait to represent her family, while she had long forgotten their exact likenesses she had captured who they were as people and hung the portrait of her mother and sister on the wall opposite her bed.
"Sarah, whatever it is, whoever it is. We will face it together, with the force of the Army together," Tally reassured her. "Now, I think you should get dressed and we can talk in the living area, just in case you have an unscheduled guest or visitor." Tally said. Sarah couldn't help but smile, trust her wife to be considerate and logical. She squeezed Tally's hand before climbing out of bed and walking over to her dresser where she pulled out a clean set of uniform. She felt Tally's eyes on her back as she changed, tracking her every movement, but she didn't feel hunted, if anything it made her feel safe. She turned back around once she was completely dressed, with a comb in her hand to fix her hair for the day. Tally said nothing but took the comb from her land and laid it out on top of the dresser, it wasn't meant to go there but she didn't want to put it away, not yet.
They exited the room to a group of concerned biddies standing outside the door. Several asking all at one time if she was okay, she simply nodded at them and let them know in their own way that she would be fine, she just had to talk to Tally about something that would most likely be very upsetting for all in the room. Tally walked slightly behind her almost as if the young woman was afraid that she would bolt. She was far too old and mature to do such a thing, and she wouldn't get far with the biddies before Tally could catch up.
Once again back to the red cushioned sofa, they hadn't sat there together to talk since just after Beltane. When Tally had fallen asleep on her. She sent the biddies into the office to go about their regular day to day activities. They would prepare a lot of the paperwork that Srarah needed to go over and sign, it would all be organised and waiting for her to look over that afternoon. "Tally, what do you know about the Camarilla?" Sarah asked once the pair were comfortable on the sofa.
"I know that they killed a lot of witches between the 1820's and 1920's. I know that they were dismantled by you in 1931. I know that they harvested the vocal cords from the witches they captured and killed and that they experimented on witches." Tally said looking Sarah in the eye, she could feel the tears start to build up again as she nodded in response, she waited for Tally to connect the dots. "Charvel's vocal cords were taken, when she was murdered. Do you think it might be the Camarilla again or some copycats?" Tally asked, shaken. She had put the pieces together.
"I don't know right now. They called themselves Spree, so we are treating it as such. I hope that it is just a small group of copycats that will be easy to stamp out. And that they haven't been growing and spreading like the vermin that they are under my nose, under the government's nose." Sarah said with a sharpness in her voice that she knew she had not used around Tally before.
Before the conversation could continue one of the biddies came into the room. "There is an emergency visitor outside, General Bellweather is here with Sergeant L'Amara. They said she found something in her research. This also came from an aide." Rebecca said, holding out a closed brown envelope, the type used to store and transport files. She took the envelope and nodded her thanks.
"Let them in, we will be through in a few minutes." Alder said, grabbing a spare comb and hair tie from a drawer and quickly plaiting her hair back. "It wouldn't surprise me if Izadora came to the same conclusion that you just came to and has the evidence to prove it," Alder said, putting the comb away before reaching out to Tally. "Join me?" The question did not need answering by the young witch who grabbed her hand and pulled her into the main office. "Good morning, General Bellweather, Sergeant L'Amara." Alder said, making her way behind her desk, with Tally standing at her side.
"General, are you aware that Private Craven is here with us?" Petra asked, directly to Alder, she nodded and gestured to the two chairs opposite her desk for the two officers to sit in.
"General Bellweather, I am very much aware of where my wife is, but that is not the topic of conversation right now, there are more important reasons, otherwise you wouldn't have asked for a meeting on the one morning a week that I have away from duty." Sarah quipped. Gesturing again to the still empty chairs in front of her, her hand held tightly by her wife. She ignored the shock on Petra's face. One would think that as the head of intelligence that she would pay more attention to the rumours and gossip around base. Even the War college cadets knew that. "Now, shall we get started, I don't have long." Alder said.
The pair sat down and she took her own seat pulling Tally to perch on the arm of her chair. "I expanded my research areas, like you requested, and I only came across one possible conclusion for the witches with missing vocal cords," Izadora said. "I highly suspect that it could be The Camarilla." the Sergeant said. Sarah heard Tally suck in a breath next to her and she moved her and to her wifes back, in an attempt to provide comfort for the both of them.
"They claimed themselves as Spree, so we will blame the Spree officially. I feared that this could be them making their return, but until we have concrete evidence of them returning this information does not leave this room." Alder said, not as a request but as an order. "Petra, that is your main priority, I want you to confirm this. Do whatever you need to do." she ordered before dismissing the pair. She turned to Tally and pulled her fully onto her lap.
"Don't you need to attend to whatever is in that envelope?" Tally asked her.
"I do, but it can wait five minutes for me to say goodbye to you." she said, squeezing Tally closer, who chuckled and wrapped her arms about her. "Okay. I'll let you go now. I'll see you later." Sarah said, giving Tally one last kiss before she walked her to the external garden door.
Sarah walked back up to her office and opened the envelope, inside was paperwork requesting emergency asylum from two members of the Tarim group between Russia and China. The paperwork had been filled in by Captain Kathleen Nash. In a Russian, US military base near the desert region. They had been transferred to the base infirmary, the younger one, identified as Khalida was sick with a disease the Fixers had been unable to identify, or treat in any way. The other, named only as Adil, was dehydrated and malnourished, as was the girl. Adil had apparently requested to be brought to Fort Salem and to meet with her, to discuss the continued welfare of their people on behalf of the girl, identified as his sister.
She read through the rest of the file, apparently their people were being hunted by unidentified groups of people and they had taken refuge in the desert, but many people were sick and dying. They had lost their homes and many of their cultural relics had apparently been destroyed. Sarah closed the file and stored it in the bottom drawer of her desk, alongside her marriage paperwork for her union with Tally.