lead me back from the darkness like you do; rhaegor / diplomats / any

Leilan

Glaciers melting in the dead of night
and the superstars sucked into the supermassive

So many things are happening because he appeared and opened his mouth - suppressing a sigh, the scaled silver bay roan gives Magnus a near-tired look. Disappointed, perhaps even. ”I see. I hope you understand, that this is a family matter, so naturally I wouldn’t want to burden you with it during this conversation. I doubt that I’ll ever get any other chance to talk to your companion, however, since he appears to have too strict a schedule to meet any of us.” A glance at Chryseis - by now she knows exactly how unhappy he is about her secrecy, and whatever Rhaegor may think, in this family, secrets are the worst thing in the world. She bertrayed his trust and that’s what cost her her freedom temporarily. It’s no more complicated than that. If Magnus or Rhae wants to feel offended about it still, then he can do that for all Leilan cares about it at this point. He doesn’t have an issue with the buckskin or with Tephra as a whole, as he hopes to now have made clear, but since so many people are interrupting, there’s no way to fully know what anybody is thinking about at the moment.

Sarkis follows suit, another underwater stab at him for being the big scary, unreasonable dad. The scaled stallion closes his eyes for a little longer than a single blink, hiding the conflict of emotion that his eye colour would otherwise have betrayed him. When he opens them again, it is an aqua blue that shows. Though he doesn’t think Sarkis has ever seen it before, having only greeted her when she came back to Nerine, and as thanks for his help with her panic attack he now gets this. Sassy Sissy Sarkis.

Too bad for her, he’s better at it. ”Hello Sarkis, I’m so glad you finally found time to come out of your shad- eh, hiding. I wasn’t aware of you joining any ranks that you felt the need to guard the border against Taiga, but I’m sure we can find you something to do. It appears we are behind on our diplomatic schedule... Oh and, this is your niece, Chryseis, and you have other nieces and nephews too. Chryseis, this is one of your numerous aunts. She returned to us last year, though I haven’t spoken to her since.” he explains in a slightly too-joyous tone; after all, Sarkis never really talked to him so he doesn’t think she has the right to be so sassy with him right now.

If all else would fail, Nalia joins them, too. The winged mare has a tendency to show up at diplomatic meetings, and Leilan starts to wonder if the personal drama he and Breckin had with an unexpected set of twins in the middle of a Plague, together with fusing two kingdoms and laying claim to a near-uninhabitable safe land that suddenly everybody wanted to have, had caused the Nerinians to all feel bored in the meantime (but why all show up here with this one meeting?). Perhaps they should send the diplomats on missions, too. Surely Nalia wants a stretch of wings and apparently even Sarkis has re-grown her mouth when he wasn’t looking.

The grulla painted filly probably felt the now-tensing environment since she asked Magnus to elaborate first, but to be honest that sounds too much like a threat when added to the previous. So the scaled stallion shakes his head, ”As I recall, we’ve always had good relations in the past. Personal matters should not come between our long-standing relations. Nerine has had it’s own rearrangements and with a threat from outsiders claiming the nearby safeland, I’m afraid we’ve not sent our diplomats out to the other lands yet. But I see Sarkis and Nalia are eager to go.” Glancing at the two of then briefly to measure their responses, he shrugs and continues. ”But most of all we do not wish to spread the Plague that way, as we don’t know the matter of it’s contagiousness yet. I hear Tephra has no such issues, but we and many other lands are susceptible. Of course, with so many of us gathering, the sickness cannot be avoided, but perhaps another land has been luckier than us so far.” Good idea bringing an infected horse on diplomatic missions. Even greater idea, all of you showing up and spreading it through the whole kingdom no doubt. Not that Leilan really minds at this point, Chryseis had already caught and probably spread it, but perhaps Magnus would like to rethink on it before he goes to another land that might be vulnerable to this disease?

His mother pipes in, stepping forward a bit more than necessary. Leilan lifts his square head a bit higher to still address Magnus even though he lets her do the talking (this is one big shithole in his opinion already). She does a lot of talking - he didn’t get it from his father, that is clear, and scolds them all for being here. Hey now, he got here first (Chryseis did, technically, but she didn’t do much of diplomacy, just eyeing her boyfriend really). It’s not his fault that everybody else felt the need to add their little somethings. For once it’s not entirely his fault, and so that’s where the unblinking return-stare comes from. Not that she probably would have any more to say about it at the moment, seeing as she wants to continue the diplomacy.

He adds multiple small, dismissable sounds where Scorch is wrong as she talks - he is not leading the Isle because of other claimers and hasn’t seen Camomila for a long while now, and also it’s Lilitha who had claimed the Taiga as a herdland. Therefore he feels the need to stay present at this meeting, whatever his mother may be thinking.

He recieves a glare from his daughter before she leaves, which earns her to be completely ignored in return (it’s so hard not to eye roll at her), but then he shrugs at Magnus and Scorch. ”Perhaps it’s better to continue diplomacy in a smaller circle, but as I understand it, you may want to rest and then continue to other lands instead. We’d be more than happy to come to Tephra to discuss further details when we’re all settled with the Plague.” And other issues - leadership, a daughter that doesn’t want to learn from anything he tells her, and oh perhaps the war that Phasus and Set threatened to start if they won the claim on the Ice-land. As Magnus has been seen and displayed multiple times by now, Nerine is still a bit chaotic following the events.

Really, this visit it just badly timed, as the roan sees it.

you set my soul alight