[private] She is something to behold | Rhaegor

[Leilan]

Leilan

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

A quick jerk of his head - together with the earlier mentioning of needing to speak - indicates the young stallion to follow. If he chooses not to, then he just made himself an enemy on a personal level; he is quite certain he knows, and will be smart enough not to sign his own death penalty. Figurative or literally, that depended more on Chryseis than she probably realized.

Then again, aside from the idiotic way of marking her for everybody to see, Rhaegor hadn’t done much. At least, that Leilan knows of. Chryseis said they ‘hadn’t done anything’ which had the ‘yet’ hanging thickly in the air between father and daughter back then. But it was something. Her heart, however, was already on the line. Since she was as stubborn as he, she would probably love as stubbornly as he, too.

Which is the one thing he needs to go over with this Rhae kid. Chryseis doesn’t realize what she’s let herself into, and so, the boy should definitely know that if he ever so much as makes a hair fracture on Chryseis’ heart, Leilan will hunt him down. Forever, if need be.

That’s all there is to it - Chryseis just likes to exaggarate and blame her parents, of course. Like any teenage girl would.

Walking a good distance away from his daughter, he waits. Let’s see if the winged kid has any guts at all. He’ll need them, with a girl hell-bent on self-destruction.

you set my soul alight

HTML by Vanilla Custard

@[Rhaegor]
And one for you, for after diplomatic thread

[Rhaegor]

Prove that you can make the world a better place.

The words ring in his ears, as clearly as if the Ice Fairy were once again standing before him with her infinitely wise eyes and the wind defiantly at her back. The powerful words cause another jolt of pain in the back of his skull as his vision wavers, one of the residual effects of his newfound and currently temporary telepathy. When the pain stops and his eyes see once more, Rhaegor attempts to forget the discomfort he’d been put through for the first day or so after receiving this gift – but he had said he would do anything for this chance, and he meant it.

He meant it so much that he even obliges his father-in-laws wishes, despite the many, many reasons why he would have been justified in turning away. Although the rage of any well-meaning lover expands his thin, plague-ridden chest as he thinks of how Leilan treats his daughter like a possession and not a treasure, free to do as she pleases and perfectly intelligent enough to do so of her own avail, Rhaegor goes. Although he had been asked, no, commanded into making this meeting happen when he was but a diplomat standing on foreign soil, Rhaegor goes. Although he can literally say nothing to defend himself against what he understands to be an angry, dangerous dragon-creature, Rhaegor goes.

Except that he does have a means of communication now. And while he has been accidentally picking up on the overt thoughts of others for days now, this will be his first time truly interacting with another’s mind; he can only hope that this interaction goes, well enough that it impresses the faeries’ and convinces them that he deserves this ability.

Or rather, that he does not deserve a disability.

When Leilan signals for Rhae to follow him out of the mass of horses gathered on Nerine’s border, Rhae hears him thinking about how if Rhae did not follow, he would be earning himself an enemy for life. Immediately a sensation of helplessness overcomes the young man, he who has had nothing to defend himself with against these kinds of vindictive and unfounded feelings of anger for the entirety of his life up until now. Despite his eagerness to prove himself to the faeries, Rhae hangs back for a minute or two, attempting to stifle his emotion before following. He also says that he will regroup with Magnus shortly, and gives Chryseis a tight but quick embrace, trying to silently communicate that all would be well.

And it would be, unless Leilan had already assumed that Rhae’s fears and understandings of injustice equaled the signing of his own death penalty. His eyes prickle anew when he catches wind of that thought; he loves a girl, and her very own father wants him to die for it.

Now or never, I suppose.

Inhaling feebly, the pathetic, plague-ridden creature hurries to follow Leilan’s distinctly reptilian scent, wings trembling at his side. The first thing he hears when he finds the dragon is lets see if this winged kid has any guts at all. Feeling more discouraged than ever, and as if this will certainly not impress the faeries, Rhae stops in front of Leilan and forces himself to meet the other’s intense, colourful gaze. It’s the least he can do, if he wants to be with a girl hell bent on destruction… Though he’d never gone by that nickname before (Rhae suited him more than Destruction), Rhae figures that it is better than Dead-Man.

@[Leilan]

[Leilan]

Leilan

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

There’s a whole lot of miscommunication when one doesn’t talk - which is the root of the problem, perhaps. Rhaegor never once even tried to get to know Chryseis’ family, and Chryseis herself hadn’t bothered to even talk about the fact that she had a boyfriend. The first led Leilan to conclude the boy might not be as interested in her than the other way around - as boys in their teenage years were wont to do, his eyes might linger on the next girl, and in the worst case scenario, his firstborn daughter that he’s always tried to protect from harm would be devastated, pregnant, and utterly alone.

Or she’d defiantly run towards the kelpie land after all that, and either birth a bunch of kelpie babies or get drowned.

Hell-bent on self-destruction.

To Leilan, Rhaegor doesn’t look to be interested in all that Chryseis has to offer. A pretty face, yes, a toy thing, sure, but a toy to be claimed as is evident by her scars, as if she is his possession. Now that, that really angers the draconic stallion, and he has no good words for the boy that has avoided him so far - shady people avoid others.

And no, he doesn’t trust Chryseis’s judgement in this, she is too naive. Ivar the kelpie her friend. Never even wondering where she had come from despite his obvious pull towards Breckin and not her mother. Never asking. Never attempting to learn frmo any of his mistakes, so that she doesn’t have to make them.

She’ll be lost. Either she dies too early, or she’ll get changed by these events, like Willa and Eilidh and Sarkis - damaged, broken, a ghost of what they once were. Is that worse or the same as her premature dying?

But the problem is this kid, of course. A playboy (as he assumes all boys are at this age) holding her heart. So he has something to say to Rhaegor, even if he doesn’t want to hear it perhaps. He lowers his head to the young man’s level. ”If you want to be part of this family, you come fucking meet them beforehand. That’s partly her fault too, so I’ll let it slide this time. Really though, claiming, marking, is middle-aged.” But they have a common goal here, for her to be happy. He searches Rhae’s eyes a moment; the following is the most important. ”But if you ever break her heart, I will come for you.”

you set my soul alight

HTML by Vanilla Custard

@[Rhaegor]
Self-destruction, lol. That’s not just Rhae

[Rhaegor]

There’s a whole lot of miscommunication when one doesn’t talk - which is the root of the problem, perhaps.

Ouch. Rhae’s face visibly twists when he hears this thought; after coming from Magnus’ high praise of his ability, despite his mutism, this is a harsh blow to the boy’s confidence. Words tingle in the back of his throat, dying there as they wait to be sent out into the world; Rhae chokes silently on them, tears threatening to well in his eyes. But he has to prove that he has guts, so he stops the watery things in their tracks, remaining clear-eyed, but very cloud-minded.

He is being made the villain due alone to his disability. While not many in Beqanna understand what the fallout of being defected are, he can imagine that in a world where disability is more common, such narrow-minded discrimination is absurdly common. This realization makes him want to scream, to shout about the injustice of it all, and to teach Leilan about the fact that sometimes, the world doesn’t revolve around him. Sometimes, people are silent for more reasons than to be a jerk.

Unseen, he bites the inside of his lips, attempting to stomp out the endless internal monologue of panic and anger. Nothing would come of this if he couldn’t get himself under control; bigot’s minds could be changed, and truth be told, even Rhae could recognize the anger of a scared father as just that, and as not having a foundation in hatred. Rhae could only hope, for the reality is that every single thought of Leilan’s is but another uncharitable assessment of the man who would do anything for his daughter.

I don’t trust Chryseis. She is too naïve. Even though this thought is followed up with the name of a stallion who Rhaegor does not recognize nor has ever been informed of, his breast swells in anger. How dare this stallion think so lowly of his own daughter? Leilan lowers his head to Rhaegor’s level, an insult to the Arabian’s naturally small stature.

It would seem that everything, especially the things Rhae can’t control, are the Bain of Leilan’s existence.

Finally, the ice dragon speaks; but the word’s edges are no less sharp than the thoughts he’d previously and unknowingly delivered into Rhaegor’s mind. Complete with vulgarity and all; so much for protecting the innocence of children. Or is it that Leilan simply has it out for Rhae, and doesn’t care at all about Chryseis? After all, by the way it sounded, he hasn’t gone and given Ivar a talking to.

Because clearly, the fifteen-hand tall, diplomatic prince and clear lover-not-fighter is the real issue here.

We have a common goal here, for her to be happy.
But if you ever break her heart, I will come for you.

At long last, the stallion can no longer contain himself; ears pinning and wings rustling to twice their regular size as he defends himself, Rhae casts his thoughts directly into Leilan’s mind, his brown eyes as cold as ash.

You are blinded, by what I do not know; but you have taken me and judged me before you even met me, you have condemned me and now you have literally threatened me. I came into this hoping that perhaps we could establish a friendship, or at least an understanding, but it is clear to me that no such understanding can ever be reached until you are willing to consider that maybe it’s you who is the problem. Maybe you should focus on cleaning up your own life before micro-managing your daughter’s, your daughter who, might I remind you, is an adult by all Beqannan standards.

Here Rhae pauses, a look of vehement contempt lacing his expression. No kingdom in this land would turn her away on account of her age, and I daresay that many would welcome a girl seeking refuge from her tyrant father. His eyes narrow. You see, Leilan, I know about you because I listen to Chryseis; and I know that she has tried to tell you about me. Have you listened? Or do you only hear that which benefits you, and which plays into this obsession you have with controlling a young girl as she discovers herself and love for the first time? Bold, he knows, to use the word love in this context. But ask him if he gives a damn.

You can come for me all you want. I have larger issues than sightless hotheads – namely looking after the daughter you claim to be father to.

[Leilan]

Leilan

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

Are there sharks in here?

A Kelpie bit you?
(As if they could never bite or kill anyone.)

Ok, one of the bites is from Rhae. But we didn’t, you know, do anything? The other one is from Ivar. He’s a kelpie, did you know that?

She’s gonna get herself killed.

It’s not the first time he thinks it, nor will it probably be the last.

The fact that the boy is mute is not something Leilan could possibly know about. He hadn’t been given the time to ask around who he was (since he never showed up to introduce himself, nor would Chryseis say a word - Leilan doesn’t even know about the boy’s parentage, only had deciphered from Magnus' presence that he lives in Tephra now). Mutism wouldn’t have mattered - if he’d shown up at least. But the roan just doesn’t like the idea of a boyfriend that he never gets to meet at all. That she never talked about, even, until her father called her out on her being claimed twice over. What kind of a father would, in fact, like to discover these things that way? Unless they didn’t care about the girl’s well-being?

Sure, he shouldn’t have been so angry about it - it was like saying ‘no’ when she had wanted to swim (even when she couldn’t). Like saying ‘no’ when he’d told her never to go find a kelpie on her own.

Like saying ‘no’ to everything dangerous in her life, because she just had that tendency to not see if anything was dangerous or not.

And so she was doomed to make his mistakes all over again, like he'd repeatedly worried about, and repeatedly had tried to tell her. But she refused to learn a fuck-thing about his life, and get probably as miserable as he. Or worse, since she would be the one carrying foals. Instead, she had kept both Rhaegor and the kelpie a secret. Apparently they were things to hide from her father, and also her adoptive mother, because she was embarrassed about them. He's not quite sure if Briseis knows, but he suspects she didn't get told much either.

Now why is that, one could wonder? Surely not because the boy is an absolute saint. Probably more like he’d already done what every boy did at least once in their life. Steal glances. Break hearts. On to the next one.

But nonetheless, all he ever gets for trying to protect Chryseis, is glares.

Glares and shrugs. When he told Ivar he didn’t like that he was hanging around with his daughters, especially those barely coming of age, all he got was a shrug.

He might have tried ripping him to shreds if Naia hadn’t spoken up to address the more important issue.

The lowering of his head had only been a way of looking him straight into the eye. But the boy stiffens as if his mighty pride had been hurt by it. But I don’t care about your personal pride right now. I care about nothing about you personally, in fact - we're only here because you're fucking my little girl or are about to. You should know I'll be looking out for her whenever she doesn't, and that happens to be a lot.

And with every word Rhae crams into his unprepared mind, that feeling of ripping someone to shreds gets directed slightly more at the younger claimer. A mind reader. For fucks sake, not even his jumbled up thoughts are safe. And just like Raed and Set had not too long ago, it seemed that all mind readers were notoriously bad at interpreting whatever stray thought (conscious or subconscious) they picked up on.

Rhae might have been innocent, before. Right now, it’s clear to Leilan that he’s just about as much a hypocrite as everybody (this includes Leilan himself). Thinking himself better than her father, for what reason, he doesn’t quite know. The fact that he dares to tell his daughter 'no' once in a while? Maybe Rhae is of high birth - born with his wings and pretty-boy looks no doubt, or perhaps even more magic - maybe that's the explanation. Surely he would attract a young girl like his daughter; about as much as it had attracted her - still did - to go find a kelpie and get infatuated. Infatuated and drowned.

He lets the word flow pass. Establish a friendship or understanding? Hah. And yet here you are, you’re yelling inside my head. Real nice of you. More stray thoughts, feelings more like, declare exactly how he feels about all this, though he refuses to make a move or to let any thought complete into a sentence, lest the boy will use that against him too. Out of spite, maybe. Stubborn refusal to give the boy what he’s clearly out for: to get him fully mad - not even Chryseis knows what that look like, but Rhaegor is so very close and he doesn’t even seem to know it. Why wouldn’t he know it? Well, that’s an easy one: because he’s too angry to look past his own feelings, just as much as Leilan is.

But it has some kind of effect, anyway, this yelling. Though probably not the desired one. Suddenly, the roan jerks his head up and away, though the furious rant (not all of it is true, but he doesn’t really take the time to waylay all his thoughts before this mind-invader, arguments for him to pick apart - he's tired of this) is just about halfway through. Then, he reaches out unexpectedly quick, in an attempt to have his sharp teeth sinking in and out the younger stallion’s shoulder, probably painless in the moment of contact, marking him just as much as his daughter had been. ”Congratulations on joining the family. Turns out you’re just like the rest of us.” Hypocritical, easy to anger, and making rash decisions - that sort of thing. The tone of his dry comment is not congratulating at all, of course, but rather some kind of careless-angry-disappointment mix. But if this is Chryseis’ choice, then it is her choice, though not one he will back up at this moment. But she doesn’t need his permission to find a stupid boyfriend who might ruin her. She doesn’t need his, or Rhaegor’s, permission to find herself a Kelpie to carry half-fish babies for or who will drown and eat her, whichever comes first. (He’ll never forget the hungry way in which Deiti had stared to him that day. It’s only waking up in time that had prevented her from chewing his flesh off his bones.) He'd never give his permission if she asked, but she's not going to ask any more. That time is over. Her mind is set on her own path to destruction. A path so similar to his own, but she lacked the immortality to protect her.

But that’s something that Rhaegor will find out for himself in due time.

She’s gonna get herself killed.

And she'll drag you down, too.

you set my soul alight

HTML by Vanilla Custard

@Rhaegor
For you to decide if the marking-thing worked. Also, Leilan has nothing else to say to Rhae at this point, so I was thinking this could be the end if you want?

[Rhaegor]

Rhaegor

the playboy

In the wake of silence that follows Rhaegor's mental speech (whose volume cannot exceed that of any mind-voice), a plethora of thoughts flow through Leilan's mind. For a moment, the prince ignores them, preferring instead to close his eyes to the fact that he has most likely killed any chance of a relationship with his potential father-in-law. His ears, quivering, flick to the sounds of birds and trees around them, wishing for a moment to be a part of their worlds.

But then, if that wish came true, he would lose Chryseis; so he foregoes the dreamland, and returns to reality. At least, he tries to. Blinking once, a vision suddenly overtakes him, its content being that of Leilan bursting into a dragon and killing him. The vision comes too late to sufficiently warn the buckskin stallion, but luckily, it'd always been veritably hyperbolic. Snorting (the loudest form of exclamation he can muster), Rhae spooks away from Leilan's attack, but not in time. Left upon his shoulder, the bloody marks of sharp teeth glisten in the winter sunlight. The wound stings more painfully than he might have imagined. Heart racing due to adrenaline, Rhae looks angrily to the other; but at Leilan's words, understanding slowly trickles across the young one's face.

Congratulations on joining the family. Turns out you're just like the rest of us.

The tone of Leilan's voice portrays next to no congratulations, and the look he tosses to Rhae communicates the opposite of acceptance, or at least, the very minimum of tolerance. Ignorance, more like; as if he had now decided to abandon the project of his daughter entirely. Ears pressing back, Rhae inhales and shudders, absolutely uncertain as to how to act next; but the final thoughts he hears (she's gonna get herself killed. And she'll drag you down, too) solidifies his countenance.

No, Rhae projects. She won't. Withers trembling, the boy steps forward timidly, extending his nose as if to press it to the other's side; a gesture of peace, of understanding, of hope for better relations later. I'll make sure of it. I promise. Blinking one last time, Rhaegor leans back on his heels and pivots, looking behind him one last time before heading off towards the mountain, a thousand thoughts shooting through his mind.

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