⊰ ❪ rakkoran. ❫
➤ Though it wasn’t a thunderous smash, the abrupt sound of the teacup being placed, and the woman’s tone did enough to make Atreus instantly close his mouth. He turned his head slightly at the noise, not fully facing her, but far enough to eye her curiously out of the corner of his eye. She looked offended, then immediately tried to return to the normalcy of the moment before. For a stretch, Atreus held his tongue and the low crackling of the fire in the hearth served as the only response to the steady rainfall outside.
He rose from where he was seated in front of the fire, it did well to dry him enough that he wasn’t dripping water with every step, and he sat in the chair opposite from her. Atreus looked down with a hesitant eye towards the cup. Faint trails of steam swirled about the rim. The brief time that Atreus spent in the Solari Citadel made him recognize that it was tea, but that did nothing to provide any familiarity as it was a drink he only had once or twice before. The woman serving tea made it clear that hospitality wasn’t her strong suit, and the barely veiled threats should Atreus do something to put her parents in danger. Atreus looked towards the cup, towards the few droplets of tea on the table that had spilled out with her placing the drink down, then he met her eyes.
What am I seeing in her visage? So much emotion, yet nothing at all.
He had half a mind to politely reject the drink, but her words drove him to reach for the cup and hold it between his hands. His gaze dropped to look into the contents of the cup idly, the silence continued to stretch on between them.
Speaking of battle must not be welcome in this country.
Atreus couldn’t remember if his mother had ever mentioned Ionia’s culture regarding war. He remembered how the swordsman fought, with deftness and agility, so he assumed that they could find a common ground there.
This woman’s tongue begs to differ.
After a moment, Atreus rose the cup to his lips and took a small drink. Warm, a very light sweetness to it. Atreus took a second sip before lowering the cup and holding it between his hands for warmth.
“I apologize if I offended you. Where I come from, we speak of battle and war as if they were the air and water. If the sons of A-sah and She-vah–” The names felt strange on his tongue, foreign, “had within them a shred of their parent’s nature, I’m sure they died honorable deaths.”
“My name is Atreus, Atreus Nikoros of the Rakkor. My mother traveled across the earth when I was a child and she brought back tales with her about all the lands she visited. The way she spoke of Ionia stuck to me, so after all these years I wished to see it for myself.”
He idly swished the contents of the cup left and right between his hands. Then, Atreus tossed his head back and downed the rest of the tea in a single gulp before he carefully placed the cup on the table between them. Drinking the tea was the only condition that she mentioned.
“So, I would like to call this place home for the time being while I see what else Ionia has to offer. Your name?”
Atreus leaned back slightly in his chair, the wood of it made a slight creak in protest. His eyes finally rose to meet hers again, but the eye-contact was brief. Through the constant sound of rainfall and the low rumbling hearth, Atreus heard a faint pair of knocks against the door. He rose a brow and looked to her, his hands turned slightly to hold the armrests of the chair, but he remained seated.
Riven indulges in silence for a few beats longer, trying to swallow the vitriol that she can feel swelling at the gate of her throat. No, of course he wouldn’t know any better. She wouldn’t pretend to ask much of a man from Targon, a place of which she knew very little, besides that the people there lived and died defending it’s cold slopes. Of course, for them, war had become a way of life, just like it had become a way of life for her.
Even still, it is difficult to hear him speak of honour.
He had not seen what she had seen. She had witnessed the earth churn thick with blood, torn asunder by hulking war machines. She had witnessed her fellow men and women scream with an irreparable agony, their flesh melting off their bones to the endless tune of an ongoing war; nobody cared who bled. War was an ever-falling tree in a perpetually empty forest. No sound. No witness.
Asa and Shava’s sons died young. They died painfully, she’s sure, and alone, faceless among the corpses of their fallen brethren. But thank the gods it was for their country, if that’s all that honour means. What a useless sentiment.
“ It’s fine, ” she says instead, breaking the thousand-yard hole she’d been boring into the far wall with her eyes. She clears her throat, her own chair creaking beneath the shift of her weight, mirroring his movement. “ Riven. ”
The knock at the door might be a blessing in disguise, but Riven stands too quickly to make it seem that way. The chair scrapes across the floor as she scoots it back, exchanging a brief look with Atreus in which Riven feels resigned to playing nice. She moves to the door and tests the handle against her palm in that careful, vigilant way she always does.
She peers through the open space, hinges squeaking their protest, and sees a young boy. Though she doesn’t recognize him, he stands toting Asa’s wooden umbrella, looking no worse for wear. He also looks nervous. There is a damp piece of parchment clutched in his right hand.
“ Is everything alright ? ” Riven asks, a tension settling in her shoulders.
“ Master Asa wanted you to have this, ” he says quietly. He hands her off the parchment, shy and reserved in his mannerisms. Riven glances down, smoothing her thumb over the wet-weathered edge.
“ Thank you, ” she says, and before she can open her mouth to say anything else the boy turns and takes off back down the path, the too-big umbrella clutched in both hands. He spares one glance over his shoulder at her before being swallowed by the gloam.
The door clicks shut, and Riven turns, rolling her shoulder blades against the wood and leaning into it as she unfolds the letter. She can feel Atreus’s eyes on her as she reads. “ Asa and Shava won’t be back tonight, ” she says after a few beats of silence. “ Their friend is having a difficult birth, so they want to stay. ” She idles a few steps closer to the table and sets the letter down. He could look at it if he liked. “ You can stay the night. There’s a spare room at the end of the hall. Asa and Shava will be back by morning. ”
Riven looks at Atreus again. There was no more anger left inside her ; as soon as Asa and Shava heard him out, they would ask him to stay. Might as well get comfortable now. “ And if you can milk a goat, they’ll probably ask you to stay forever. They’re not hard to please. ”
