just let me cry a little bit longer, sunny

[Rhaegor]

Rhaegor

the playboy

Her laughter reminds him.

Images fly behind his eyes, distorting what he glimpses of the present; all at once, he's in the playground again, his first outing sans triplet siblings. Somewhere behind him, his grandfather stands, languidly keeping watch of his own father's namesake. Beyond Kavi's familiar scent, everything is new to the little prince. New. And loud. And - coming to him in the shape of a young girl. Gold-skinned as he is. As unapologetically accepting of his silence as the moon to the sun. Sunny, she dubs him. It's not quite Ray but he didn't complain - and he never did as the months passed.

Years.

A childhood ripened by friendship.

A teenagehood rottened by flirtatiousness and recklessness.

An adulthood fermented by confusion - second thoughts.

How easily she laughs at the dumbfounded boy, stumbling as he does through the shallows. No amount of willful aloofness could make this situation laughable for Rhae. As much as he wants to give in to the ripeness of their youth-years (to the memories of the past which could easily become the present only to be memories once more), something holds him back. Someone. Everyone.

Himself. Chryseis. His family. The emotionally-driven thoughts of children that run murkily through Dawn's cognitions. Each one another piece in the puzzle that is their endlessly interwoven live - except most pieces don't match. Not just here - but everywhere in Rhae's life.

Why hasn't he sought out his family yet?
Why hasn't he sought out Tephra yet?
Why hasn't he been honest about his feelings yet?

The severity of his confusion increases as he feels the gentle probing of her mind towards his. Perceptive Dawn, hearing his internal voice as well as she always had, even before he earned telepathy. Rhaegor flinches, meeting her gaze with hostility. Something sends him skittering away from her touch yet again, as though wounded at the exact point she had reached for; the vulnerability she expects of him only reinforces the defenses he's been so steadily and unknowingly erecting. Her simple love from him calls into question every decision he's made - maybe ever.

Eventually, her thoughts quiet, and her body stills. Rhae finds himself with three planted legs and one raised in mid-step, withers flinching repetitively. Seconds bleed into minutes as a storm of words jostle for the right to be spoken. Many times, the perfect phrase comes, and it repeats over and over in the private corner of his mind, phrases like My love for you has never changed and I'm scared it never will and I can't cope with the thought of ever losing you again, please, please stay with me and No one knows me like you do and that terrifies me.

She'd asked for his vulnerability, had reached for their once-physical connection in a hope that perhaps it remained.

His silence speaks to a hidden panic (panic at his inability to speak to his own best friend, panic at being disabled, panic at the decisions he's made that brought him here and panic at where the decisions he makes now will take him, panic because even if he could speak he wouldn't know what to say, panic because he loves her, god he loves her). The world around them seems to shrink. Nothing exists now except them, this river, and the trees. A peripheral existence, not seen from straight on.

At long last, some words break through the barrier.
They aren't as climactic as he would have liked.
He's not as bold as he is in his dreams.

I'm sorry, he thinks to her. The cool brown of his eyes remains steadfastly attached to herself. Tethering him to this reality - loosely. I hope you understand...

...my name on your tongue and your tongue on my...