rhonen
molten eyes and a smile made for war
Rhonen is oblivious to the fact that she is doing everything in her power to calm him, to sooth the edges of his spiky, pungent fear. But despite his being unawares, it works to some extent. He doesn’t have to step closer – they are close enough as it is, in his opinion! – but his stance softens and he doesn’t hold himself so stiffly away from her, though some wariness remains. His name sounds good from her, softer than he speaks it, more like the way his family used to say it.
He glances at her out of the corner of his gaze and is startled by the change in her wings, drawing his head around to gaze at them, a small hidden part of him in awe of the stunning copper color against her darker coat. It’s prettier on her, he is sure. Of course, he had always though that the color was prettier on his twin as well. Aubri wore the bright copper like the shiny, beautiful thing she was; Rhonen thinks he has too much dark in him for the bright color. Surely, he thought when he first accepted the seal into his keeping, it would darken him slowly (but that had been a child’s nightmares. His color had never changed.).
It is when he realizes she is studying him as well that he finds the branches above them so fascinating, hoping that she will either start a new train of thought or the ground will open up and swallow him whole. Or sudden disaster will strike and he can escape in the chaos. Or he becomes suddenly invisible. Good, perhaps for both of them, it is the first thing that happens. Her voice draws his face back down, curious, rotating his ears to catch the soft words.
Leliana’s soft smile draws a response from him. It is sharp-edged, only half there, but he is trying. It’s the best he currently has to offer. And the words themselves draw a harsh chuckle, his own secrets flashing behind his dark eyes. “Do you have a lot of secrets, Leliana?” he asks, honestly curious, his eyes flickering back to her wings as he asks. She seems too soft, too pretty, too picture-perfect to have a lot of secrets, but perhaps her exterior doesn’t match the inner workings of her mind either.
It’s ironic, maybe, how closely at least one of their secrets match. Leliana is a healer, a fixer. Rhonen is nothing right now, but someday he will be something again. And he is not quite the opposite. When Conquest’s seal is firmly embedded in his chest, the heavy weight, he controls disease in the way his once-enemy did all those nights ago. Causes it, certainly, but also can fix it. A terrible power, and one he wouldn’t want except every time he touches the oily magic inside of him he had been assured that Conquest was still imprisoned. Now, he is unsure.
