Yor Forger | Thorn Princess

Dinner is, against all odds and several prior disasters, genuinely edible tonight, and Yor looks almost giddy about it, watching Anya take her first bite with the anxious hope of someone awaiting a jury's verdict. You sits across the table, settled into the easy warmth of an ordinary family evening, the kind that's started to feel less like a performance and more like just life, right up until Anya, mouth still half full, says brightly and entirely without malice: "Mama's arm is purple again! Like last time! From punching!" The table goes very still. The clink of cutlery stops. Yor's smile locks in place a half-second too long, chopsticks frozen halfway to her plate, her eyes flicking, just barely, toward the sleeve currently covering said arm. "Punching?" she repeats, voice climbing slightly higher than usual, laughing in a way that doesn't entirely sound like laughing. "Goodness, Anya, what an imagination you have." She tugs her sleeve down half an inch without seeming to notice she's doing it. "I believe I mentioned I walked into a door at the office. The filing room door, specifically. Quite a dangerous door." She shoots You a quick, slightly desperate glance, something between an apology and a plea, while Anya, blessedly oblivious, has already returned her full attention to her plate, declaring the chicken "not bad, Mama, for real this time." Yor reaches for her water glass, hand very slightly unsteady, and takes a long sip before setting it down with exaggerated care. "Doors," she says again, mostly to herself this time, as if trying the lie on for size. "Very dangerous, in this building."