“ i didn’t realize this was a competition. ” but there was no malice in his tone, no spite or disinterest —quite the opposite. amusement glittered in his eyes, shining more favorably to mossy green today than any other of the colors they shone normally. his tone was softer, as if purposefully trying to lure the lady-knight closer, to listen more aptly, to be more invested in the coy game that ser xandros was attempting to play. “ i’m not the knight who plays tricks with spirits. you’re thinking of ser veles —tall and broad like bull with white hair and pretty gold eyes. ” standing side-by-side they were light and darkness, aymeric a shadow cast from the source. and aymeric so often followed behind his closest friend, willing to sacrifice his own time (as if he had better things to spend it on) to ensure shenanigans followed frey wherever he went. he was thankful for their balance —for the strange sort of comfort that frey offered simply by being … though he’d be sore to admit it aloud. especially to frey.
and the smirk on his lips only widened when she leaned forward: his eyes dropped to her fingers briefly, watching where they shifted and pressed in the slightest of touches. one brow quirked. what a bold thing. “ what makes you so certain i didn’t have one of the necromancers of my kingdom reanimate me? perhaps i’m just an elaborate shell of a man, under the thrall of a sorcerer or sorceress, bound until my body falls to shambles? perhaps you should check, ensure how alive i really am. ”
her confirmation on the other green knight bearing the same surname had him nodding, readjusting his cheek against the back of his knuckles where he leaned as steadily as he did. “ it seems we’re rowing in the same small boat then, ser laidon. neither of us wishes to be tied down by the bonds and ceremony of marriage. it’d just muddy things up. ” mercifully he’d never been betrothed, though his station as a knight did not rise him above the propositions of it. aymeric would sooner find his own fingers missing from his dominant hand than allow something so harsh to chain him down. obligation. it made his mouth feel dry for the thought of it.
“ whoever gave you the idea that wheldrake was shrouded in mystery of all things … shadows, surely. we’ve got bogs and mires and the city itself is always covered in mist or overcast but mystery is not apart of our weather or nature. i think you’ve spent too much of your wild youth listening to tall tales. be careful with those, they’ll have you believing we’re all heathens who dance naked under the stars at each religious affair when in reality we just do that for the blood moons. ” so matter-of-fact, where his jests laced themselves into his words, no intonation change in his tone to suggest that he slipped from fact to fiction at any point. though there was the softest of chuckles, something that eased from his lips like honey, “ truly, an open book. lies serve no one, save themselves. ”
“That’s not my fault, is it?” Her lip twitched, betraying her own amusement as he spoke and she fiddled with her goblet. She thought of the other knight, one who’d fought by this knight’s side during the wedding chaos. Before whisking off in the direction of her brother, Rhea had seen the two back to back, practiced and skilled in combat beside each other. It was clear as day. “It seems like quite a lot of work, to facilitate reanimation from beyond the grave,” she didn’t know a lot about necromancy beyond the basics most knew. “Though, perhaps you’re not the sort to strive for the easy path in life and, maybe you would even welcome the challenge of facilitating your own reanimation.”
She shrugged before a small but genuine bout of laughter escaped and Rhea nodded, twisting up the knife at on the table between nimble fingers as if not a sharp edge existed on the thing. “I could very easily check if you like, all men bleed, no?” The smirk on her lips belied the fact that her words were in jest, despite the truth in them as she pointedly ignored the other meaning of his own as she gave him an honest look. “However, I think, ser Xandros, you are more alive than most here.” He seemed to grab life by the fistful, even from her limited interactions with him , and not let go. There was something about it that made her wonder if he was actually desperate to feel alive, to grab onto any experience, even one sitting across from a stranger and exchanging jibes to feel grounded in this world. It was only a guess, Rhea’s observant nature lending her that much. But, if it were true, it seemed the most human thing a person could do. “But, then again,” she shrugged, “I am hardly one to make such statements of a stranger.” But she didn’t think she was wrong.
They were that too. Strangers. Though the way they spoke felt like they hadn’t always been. A silly thought, but one that felt true nonetheless. “Muddy things up and for what? Are people so frightened of broken promises they chain themselves together?” Rhea set the knife down, having almost forgotten it was in her hands and shook her head. She thought that if two people were meant to be, they would always be so, regardless of vows or ceremonies. Of course, she didn’t say as much and instead shifted her focus to Wheldrake as he spoke of his homeland. “Shadows are mysteries in and of themselves. No one, save those who command them, can see what lies beyond a shadow and that is itself a mystery, or do you disagree?” Gullivere was far different, her home full of sunlight streaming through branches, of lush greens and burn oranges. Even during the coldest months, when green faded to grey and snow covered branches, she didn’t feel the cold she imagined Wheldrake possessed throughout all seasons.
“If that is the case,” Rhea canted her head to the side, studying him for but a moment, “then what is the most important thing a fellow knight should know about you, ser?” Purposefully open-ended, a fellow knight being herself or others, but not without purpose as she watched his face, unwavering as she awaited whatever clever remark he might conjure up.
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