WHO: Kell & Rhy Maresh WHAT: a wild Rhy appears WHEN: Thursday morning WHERE: med bay WARNINGS: mentions of character death/injury/torture from their canon, as Rhy has some fun stuff to catch Kell up on.
The victory over Osaron had barely sunk in. It did not really feel like a victory, because Kell was barely conscious, and his magic felt different, and if Rhy hadn’t still been alive and not showing any signs of dying he would have worried that Kell was dying too. He was kneeling beside his brother, staring down at him, then finally dragged his eyes up to look at Lila, then Holland, then at the palace as the darkness started to slide away and disappear.
And then he looked up. There was something above him, a blue light like nothing that Rhy had ever seen, and no one else seemed to notice it. It pulled him in, and through, frazzling his nerves even further with pain and fear, and dropped him… in a place he’d never seen. Sterile, white, metal, and smelling of chemicals. There were people he’d never seen before standing over him, and they didn’t seem to know him either.
Before he had even figured out whether he was in danger or not, Rhy became aware of his brother’s heartbeat pounding hard and fast inside his chest. Next he realized that the feeling of Kell’s energy was back to normal, his brother’s magic burning hot as a flame. He could feel that Kell was close.
So he offered his new hosts a small smile - which would have been impossible only moments ago, but the renewed energy of his brother’s pulse gave him enough strength to manage it - and made polite conversation, careful not to offer any information about himself, while he waited for his brother to arrive. Strangely enough, they seemed friendly, although the information they provided about his situation only served to confuse Rhy even more. But when he didn’t ask any questions, they eventually drifted away and left him alone, instructing him only that he could not leave until four hours were up.
Rhy suspected that he would be leaving sooner than that, thanks to Kell. But he wasn’t going to try to leave under his own power; he didn’t have the energy for another conflict. He stayed sitting on the side of the medical bed and waited for his brother to find him.
--
Kell still didn’t like the shallow feeling of Rhy’s heartbeat. He and his brother had struggled to adjust to their new connection, but Kell had also grown used to it -- and the quiet of it, even after understanding it, was unsettling. He just couldn’t get over how awful it had all felt when his magic was sealed away, and he had known that it was killing Rhy.
But then, without warning, it was all back. Kell physically put a hand to his chest when he felt Rhy’s heartbeat again -- strong and fine. Alive.
Which meant only one thing.
Kell bolted from where he was and headed rapidly down to the medbay. He was terrified, because he didn’t know if it was good or bad if his brother was here, and he was afraid to lose him again -- that this would all be some hoax. And he longed to see Rhy again, too, because showing up here after being in White London had been one of the most terrifying sequence of events in his life.
He burst into the medbay and it took him a matter of seconds to lay eyes on Rhy’s familiar form. He gathered him up in his arms, singing with relief.
…
Rhy was relieved when Kell appeared, although in the brief glimpse he got of his brother’s face and clothes prior to being hugged, he got the sense that something was off. Nevertheless, his arms went back around Kell and held him hard. It felt incredibly good to feel Kell’s energy returned, even stronger now that Kell was here. He closed his eyes for a moment and let himself savor it, knowing that in the next moment, they’d have to figure out where the hell they were and how to get out of here.
Even though he tried, however, his mind wouldn’t shut off. Something wasn’t right, and it wasn’t just that they were here.
After a moment he pulled back enough to look Kell in the face without entirely letting him go, scrutinizing it carefully. He didn’t just feel better, he looked better. He was wearing different clothes.
Rhy didn’t know how to put his gut feeling into words, even as a question. Instead he asked, “Where are we?”
--
Kell clung to Rhy as long as he was able, utterly overwhelmed. He was tired of not being able to protect his brother. It was perhaps the best benefit of all the strings his magic came with, and it was grinding him down to so barely being able to hold onto Rhy, even with every drop of magic he had.
He was near to tears, if he was being honest, all that fear and uncertainty having sat in his chest for so long.
“Where to even begin,” Kell said, because he wasn’t the least bit interested in where they were right now, but he dutifully recounted what he knew all the same, explaining the cruise ship and that there were a group of people on it who routinely went to utterly different worlds.
…
Rhy lifted a hand to Kell’s face and pressed it against his cheek. He could feel Kell’s emotion more strongly than he could see it in his brother’s face, and it made his own heart ache. And it confused him, because it was also new. But it was not the most confusing part of all this.
He listened, but his confusion only grew. “That’s what they said,” he said when Kell finished, gesturing over towards the people who had greeted him, and were now working in a different part of the room. “But it doesn’t make any sense, Kell. How do you know it’s true?”
Rhy had only been here for moments; Kell couldn’t have been here for much longer, because Rhy knew that he had been the one taken through that swirling blue vortex first. He knew because he had watched Kell and the others on the floor fall away beneath him. How did Kell know? Maybe more importantly, how had he healed - or at least recovered - this quickly?
--
Kell felt the echo of comfort that accompanied the touch. Rhy was the only person in his life that he’d ever had this sort of physical ease with. Emira had tried. He knew that. But they had always seemed to be somewhat uncomfortable with each other.
“I don’t,” Kell answered. He still struggled with it all, and had been trying to consume as much information as he could -- about the nature of the place, and the people who were here, and what sort of other magic and particularly travel magic they had. If Osaron could have been behind all of this. But everything was merely theory, and all Kell knew was that his magic wasn’t helping him leave.
“I don’t have a theory on what’s more likely to be possible, though,” Kell added.
…
Rhy was strangely relieved by that answer, just because it was the first thing Kell had said that made sense. “So,” he said, “I’m probably in another world. A new one, even to you.”
There was a time, not very long ago, when that would have pleased him immensely. It still did please him a little, but even stronger was the pull back to Arnes, to London, to his people. They needed their king. This was not a good time for him to go traveling to another world. But maybe while they were here, if he could just look around a little bit…
“How long have you been here?” he asked next, because that still demanded explanation. Kell had been here long enough to change clothes and recover from the fight. Admittedly, the Antari often healed quickly, so maybe Rhy’s expectations for him had simply been set too low. Between Kell’s renewed energy and the slight excitement at being in a new world, Rhy allowed himself to feel more optimistic.
--
“You’re probably in a new world,” Kell confirmed, “new, even to me.” He knew that was perhaps one of the silver linings to Rhy in all of this. Kell would continue to worry. He had been told that people from the same world often showed up in clumps. It was hard to believe that was coincidental, but, once again, what it could mean was unclear. He had suspected a ransom request at first, and some part of him still wondered if this wasn’t merely to get them out of the way of fighting Osaron. The way his magic and his awareness of Rhy’s life had changed in coming through, though, made him unsure about that. Everyone had said time froze when you left, and that’s what it felt like from Rhy’s end.
“About a week,” Kell started to answer, but then he caught better sight of Rhy. He frowned and took another step back, appraising his brother’s appearance. A fresh of wave of horror flooded him, but he remained analytical in his appearance.
“What happened?” he asked, hooking a finger into a hole near Rhy’s shoulder.
…
“A week?” Rhy said, astonished. His cautious optimism had disappeared immediately. “No. That can’t be right.”
He almost said, you were only gone four days. But then Kell had been back, he had been right there fighting, until they had fallen to the floor, and then he had been right next to Rhy. It couldn’t have even been fifteen minutes since then.
But on the other hand, it did make a strange kind of sense. Rhy couldn’t explain the missing time, but Kell having a week to recover explained why his energy and magic was back. Maybe time had been lost somewhere in the swirling blue light, maybe Rhy had been in there longer than he’d thought.
Then Kell spoke again, and Rhy realized there was more to this than that. “Osaron,” he said slowly, “And the ice. I was the lure, remember?”
--
Kell didn’t even like hearing the name on his brother’s lips. It was his fault that Osaron had gotten anywhere near Rhy -- it was his fault for thinking it was safe to send a dying Holland back to Black London with Vitari. He should have gone himself. He should have made sure. He should never gone to White London with that girl.
But his guilt was short lived because he was too caught up in trying to sort what Rhy was saying next.
“You were--?” he started to repeat, livid at what he was hearing. “Rhy, tell me exactly what was happening when you were brought here.”
…
Rhy just stared at Kell as he watched his brother try to process all this. It was obvious that there was a severe disconnect. He did not flinch away from Kell’s anger, but also he did not respond immediately, because he was trying to sort out precisely where the disparity was. It was something that, he understood, Kell might be too angry to think clearly about, but at least one of them had to try.
And if there was one skill Rhy had been forcing himself to use in the last hours- the last week, even, but especially since the burden of kingship had fallen on his shoulders - it was keeping a clear head and thinking things through even when everything was so awful that he wanted nothing more than to succumb to his anger and grief.
“Actually,” he said, with the kind of quiet, royal firmness that did not leave any room for argument, “I think you should tell me what you last remember, so that I can start from the beginning.”
—
He wasn’t speaking from a place of anger. It was fear. He’d come from a White London dungeon where he could feel an echo of his brother dying and been unable to do anything about it. He’d arrived here to have that note on loop, over and over again, and even with his magic returned, he hadn’t been able to do anything about it.
So, yes, he was terrified at the implication that Rhy had faced off against Osaron at some point, and that Rhy’s tattered clothes were remnants of that encounter. He was supposed to protect Rhy. He was failing.
“I was in the White London dungeon,” Kell said, fighting the emotion from his voice even though it was pointless. Rhy would feel the shame. The guilt. He had left.
…
Rhy’s eyes widened, in spite of his attempts at composure. In actuality, he supposed, that particular incident hadn’t been so very long ago. A few weeks, at most. But given everything that happened since, it felt much longer. Rhy didn’t even know all the details of it, because he had not been awake. He remembered Kell leaving, and then Rhy had been barely hanging on to life, and he had woken to chaos and darkness.
“But you came back,” he said, slowly. “You don’t remember the fog? The…”
Rhy trailed off, overwhelmed by how much Kell did not remember. Overwhelmed by the idea that while Rhy had been going through all that at home - with Kell, for some of it at least - there had been some version of his brother here. Missing all of it. And Rhy hadn’t realized he was missing.
It was his brother here with him, though, of that Rhy was sure. He would know, on a deeper level than anyone else could know. He sent his mind out along their connection, just to be sure, and all he found was Kell’s familiar magic, his heartbeat, his emotions.
Rhy did his best to collect his thoughts. “While I was recovering,” he said, “after you came back from White London, the city was overtaken. Fog, not real fog, dark magic. It corrupted some, killed others. Some managed to resist and survive. You and Lila tried to help, and your blood saved some, and we warded the palace. Then you and Lila, and Holland and Alucard, you went to find an — and inheritor, something that could contain all of Osaron’s power.”
He took a deep breath. “I stayed at the palace, and dealt with...the Veskans.” The next part was going to be the hardest to say, which was why he had to get it out. “Cora and Col, they were plotting to overthrow the throne. Col killed our mother.” The pain of it was evident in his voice, and across their bond. “I tried to stop him, but he...he stabbed her through me. Cora failed to kill our father, but he died anyway, trying to fight Osaron on his own.”
He realized that he didn’t actually know whether Kell knew any of this yet, in their own timeline. “I’m so sorry, Kell.”
—
Tht he came back served as little consolation in the face of what Rhy shared next. He had been terrified to be here because he could only imagine the unspeakable horrors that Osaron was inflicting upon his home. And now he knew, and it was just as bad as he had imagined.
For the first time in his life, he regretted his magic. He had been able to do wonderful things with it -- he had found Rhy when no one else could. He had brought him back to life, and apparently kept him from dying multiple times now. But the problem was that all of Rhy’s interactions with death would have never happened if Kell’s Antari magic hadn’t been around. If he hadn’t been there, the doors to White London wouldn’t have been reopened. If Holland hadn’t answered, he would have never brought the possession charms from the Danes to Rhy.
Rhy’s feelings at the death of his parents were overwhelming. Kell couldn’t sort out his own from his brother’s, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to, although he knew there would be fair more emotions in there than simple grief. He physically took a step back from Rhy, although it would make no difference. There was no running from this.
In the midst of that whirlwind of feelings, one more thing occurred to Kell.
“You’re king now.”
They had both been raised to know that would happen one day. That Rhy would be king and that Kell would serve as his Antari. But that had always felt like it was indefinitely in the future. It was here now. His brother was something much greater than just his brother.
...
Rhy noticed the emotions coming from his brother that were not just grief, and he was not surprised, but the only deepened his sadness. His parents had failed Kell, that was certain, and the blame for it rested on their shoulders. Rhy assumed they’d had their reasons for not being warmer towards their adopted son, but he didn’t know what they were, and he doubted he would have agreed with their reasoning if he had. That was probably why the secret had not been given to him to know. He had made it obvious that he loved Kell like a brother and was not pleased with any other treatment of him.
That did not change now that he was king. His dependence on Kell was greater now, and there would likely come a time when he would have to ask something of Kell that his brother didn’t like, but he still loved Kell and wanted to do the best he could for him. He wasn’t going to treat him as his parents had done, like a possession.
“Yes,” he answered simply. He had expected this day, but could not relish it under the circumstances. He had known this was possible, of course; many transitions of power were violent and abrupt. But that was not how it had been in Arnes for a very long time, and Rhy’s parents had not been old and frail. He had not expected to be king for another ten or fifteen years, at least.
—
Kell wasn’t sure what to say to that. He knew Rhy would be king, but he had also know that it would be a painful transition, no matter how it happened. He had expected that Rhy would have Emira to guide him, but suddenly it was just the two of them -- this had perhaps happened in the most painful way that it could, and Kell was also so aware of the widening chasm between him and his brother.
Emira and Maxim may have not been parents to him, but the smartest, if not entirely planned, move they had been made was to allow such a relationship to develop between Rhy and Kell. Kell hated being a possession of the royal crown, but he loved his brother without end and would use his magic in anyway that he could.
He had told Ronan he was a dog too. It was true, even if Kell hated it.
“What happened with Osaron?” Kell asked, his gaze falling back down to the holes. That was a pain he didn’t look forward to.
…
Rhy smiled a little wryly. “I was encased in ice for most of it,” he admitted. “But the three of you fought him - you, Lila, and Holland. You had some… way of sharing your power, it had to do with the rings.”
He had only understood that on a basic, instinctive level; the rings had not been explained to him. He had only watched, noticed Lila remove the ring as soon as all of their power had started to drain away along with Osaron’s, and then scrambled to do the same for his brother. He had not quite succeeded in time - in terms of the repercussions for Kell’s power, even if there was still yet enough to keep Rhy alive - and he did not know what the fallout would be from that. He hoped his brother would recover, that the power was not permanently gone. Certainly Kell had come back from having his power drained before, but that did not mean this time could not be different.
He examined the floor in front of him as he tried to gather the rest of his thoughts. “There hadn’t been time for any of you to explain to me precisely how it worked. But Osaron was contained within the Inheritor, and his… darkness, corruption, that had taken over the city, it was disappearing. So I would cautiously say that the problem is - or at least, will be - handled.”
He didn’t know what the plans were for how to safely dispose of the Inheritor now that Osaron’s power was inside it, but he trusted that Kell and Lila would find a solution.
--
Kell’s eyes shot sharply back up at to Rhy’s at the mention of ice once again. He knew that “encased” wasn’t likely the right word to use if Rhy’s clothings bore such marks. The right word was likely “impaled,” and Kell’s anger burned sharp again at the notion that the magic demon had been able to touch his brother.
There was a time to talk with Rhy about how that wasn’t the sort of thing to smile about -- that, by Kell’s count, there were at least three times in between them when Rhy would have died.
He didn’t miss the mention of Holland’s name, and he knew that he would have to get more information about what had happened with the other Antari, but now didn’t seem to be the time. His emotions on that weren’t simple. He felt some small measure of relief that Holland had apparently been able to fend off Osaron; Holland had always been the only other Antari Kell had known, despite his cold and his distance. But, of course, Holland had hurt him badly; some of it he knew was the Danes’ fault. But the Danes hadn’t forced Holland to make a bargain with Osaron. The Danes hadn’t forced Holland to make a trade to give Kell and his world to Osaron.
The rest of it became somewhat irrelevant when Rhy added that whatever they had done had seemingly worked. It wasn’t without a high cost. He knew that. Alucard had emphasized it. But it had ended in its own way, and Red London still stood.
There weren’t precise words to convey with that, so Kell simply stepped forward and hugged Rhy again, holding him tight.
…
Rhy was slightly surprised by the hug, although he probably shouldn’t have been; he had felt Kell’s anger burning the moment Rhy mentioned being encased in ice. Encased and impaled were both appropriate words, because it had been both, technically speaking. But the more impressive feat, to Rhy, was that Kell had felt all of it and still managed to battle Osaron.
He hugged his brother back, tighter than before. No matter the disparity in their timelines, no matter the fact that he was king now, Kell was still first and foremost his brother, and nothing could change that.
When the hug naturally started to come to an end, Rhy said, “So, I’ve caught you up. Tell me about your week here.”
--
When Rhy asked his follow-up question and the serious matters of home faded a little, it occurred to Kell that they were finally traveling together. It was almost ironic. He somehow doubted that this was anything close to the trip that either of them would have wanted.
“I’ve been on this boat,” Kell said with a shrug.
…
Rhy had expected more, he realized. He expected some pressing reason why Kell had spent so long here, whether it was a good one or a bad one (in their experience it was usually on the bad side of things, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t for once be more positive). He knew that, given the urgency of the time Kell had come from, he would not have simply sat around on a boat. Unless…
The reality of their situation hit Rhy like a hammer. “You haven’t been able to get home, have you?”
--
“No,” Kell answered a bit flatly, not caring much for the reminder -- but then Rhy really had had no way of knowing, he realized.
“Everything else still works,” Kell said, swirling air about his fingertips. “But not that one. Not that I didn’t try.”
…
“Have you been alone?” Rhy asked. “Or is anyone else here with you?”
He had already observed others on this boat - could still see them from where he was sitting, in fact - but that wasn’t what he meant. Kell had never had much grace with strangers, he would not be likely to trust these, who were from a new world that Kell did not understand and which had trapped him here against his will. But if Kell was here, and Rhy was here, there was the possibility that others had shown up as well.
--
Sanct.
Rhy didn’t know that Alucard was here.
He tried not to be irritated. He really did. But he couldn’t help himself. He had been less than thrilled by Alucard’s arrival in the first place, but now he knew that he was going to have to tell Rhy that Alucard was here. He grit his teeth.
“Emery is here.”
…
The name hit Rhy like a punch to the gut. He was not sure how to deal with Alucard - and, he realized, he had even less understanding of how to deal with Alucard when Alucard might not remember all the things that Rhy did. Everything about Alucard’s return had put Rhy off-balance, because he was still hurt, and he was still attracted to the other man - against his better judgment - and he had told Alucard that he would hear him out, if he helped to save the city. He also still didn’t know whether Alucard had survived that, or would return to claim the audience that Rhy had agreed to grant him.
He wasn’t sure that he wanted Alucard to claim that audience. He was also sure that he didn’t want to live with the knowledge that he had sent Alucard to his death, especially when his real motivation was to win Rhy back.
“That’s all?” he made himself say, pushing the emotional tumult aside. “Just the two of you? And you haven’t strangled each other yet?”
--
Unfortunately for both of them, Kell was now tapped into that emotional tumult. It was, somehow, harder to feel everything that Rhy felt when it came to Alucard. It made Kell grossly uncomfortable and aware of all the ways they now invaded each other’s privacy. Even more, he didn’t want to understand Alucard, and he didn’t want to understand what it was that Rhy felt about him.
“He’s from closer to you than me,” Kell said, information he wouldn’t have volunteered if he hadn’t felt the fear and worry tinging Rhy’s mind. “He knew that you and Lila were okay.”
…
That wasn’t necessarily comforting. Well, in a way it was, and another way it wasn’t. “So he survived the quest to find the Inheritor?”
That was something, anyway. Rhy definitely didn’t need another death on his conscience. But it also meant that he was going to have to face Alucard eventually. He wasn’t ready for that. He wasn’t sure he would ever feel ready for that. And there were less distractions, less kingly responsibilities, for Rhy to prioritize here in order to put off that conversation. Maybe he shouldn’t have agreed to it at all.
He made himself breathe, regain his composure, for Kell’s sake if not his own. He did not particularly mind that nothing was a secret from Kell anymore - he trusted Kell wholeheartedly - but he knew that Kell hated that Rhy was still hurting over this, and that neither of them could really do anything about it. But then he could not help asking, “Does he know I’m here?”
--
“Yes,” Kell answered. He didn’t know the details, but he knew well enough to know that Alucard survived the bulk of what had happened in Arnes.
“It’s unlikely,” Kell said. He didn’t know how Alucard would know, because Rhy hadn’t posted on the network and Kell had gone immediately to Rhy as soon as he felt him. There wasn’t anyone else who would have really known to tell Alucard.
He hesitated. He had waited for what seemed forever for his brother, and he didn’t really want to share him now, but--
“Do you want me to go get him?”
…
Rhy’s shoulders slumped ever so slightly with the relief of that weight. He had not really thought about it until after Alucard had left, which was just another sign of how much Alucard continued to throw him off balance. He had handled a pair of twin assassins with more grace than the return of his ex-lover. He wasn’t proud of that.
“No,” he said, immediately. And then, “Not yet.”
He would have to face Alucard eventually, either here or at home, and putting it off too long would likely only make things worse. But he wasn’t ready, either to face Alucard or to give up this moment with his brother, because certainly the moment Alucard arrived, Kell would likely have to leave - even if he didn’t go far - in order for them to have a real conversation.
He gave Kell a slight smile. “He’s waited this long to talk to me. He can wait a little longer.”
--
Kell couldn’t help his quiet amusement at Rhy’s comment about making Alucard wait. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do if Rhy decided to reconcile with Alucard, because Kell didn’t trust Alucard to be careful with his brother, and Kell knew well enough how much it had hurt Rhy last time.
Kell’s job was to protect Rhy, but sometimes the most difficult thing to protect Rhy from was himself. (And that, some would argue, wasn’t really Kell’s job.)
Kell had never understood the ease with which Rhy interacted with other people. He had watched, a little, when they were both teenagers, but the charm with which Rhy interacted always felt stilted to Kell. It didn’t feel genuine in him. But that also meant that Kell didn’t understand the ease that Rhy had with intimacy. He would have gladly used being an Antari as an excuse (and sometimes still did) for his difficulty in getting close and open with others, but he knew that Rhy was just as well-known, and he obviously didn’t have the same problem.
“All right,” Kell agreed.
…
“Besides, how long has it been since we just got to sit and do nothing in particular?” Rhy grinned at his brother. “Now we don’t have any other choice. You’re stuck here with me.”
He patted the bed beside him for Kell to sit down. And then his eyes scanned the room again, with more curiosity this time. It was a different medical bay than any he’d ever seen, full of instruments he’d never been able to imagine.
“What’s your take on this world?” he asked. He had always asked Kell about the other Londons, but now he was actually in another world with his brother, and the information was more pressing. “Do they know about our world, who we are? Is there anything dangerous I should know about?”
--
“How long has it been since you’ve been able to sit and do nothing in particular?” Kell challenged back, grinning in return. Rhy always seemed to be somewhere or pulling him somewhere these days.
He settled in next to Rhy.
“It’s hard to say,” Kell said in response to Rhy’s question. “Because the ship is people from all different worlds, and each world is as different from one as the next. As far as I can tell, no one knows who we are. I said I was an Antari shortly after arriving and no one even seemed to know what that was. There are other people who can travel within the same world or between others, but I haven’t found anyone who even knows of doing it in the way that I do.”
He paused at the mention of danger. He was sure there was. But he just didn’t know what those dangers were.
“Not that I know of yet,” Kell said slowly. “There are a lot of really powerful people within this confined space, and it seems they often run into odd difficulties on these trips.”
…
“Exactly,” Rhy answered, his grin widening. “So you should take advantage of this opportunity before I’m set free and can run off and drag you into trouble.”
It felt unbelievably good to joke about that, and for it to possibly be true. He could not help but relish the chance for a break from his duties as king, especially since his absence was likely to go unnoticed. That was the up side of not having noticed that Kell was missing; he had been there all along, and maybe, hopefully, Rhy would also be there for his people, while getting to travel and have a break.
He considered Kell’s observations carefully. “Then there seems no need for secrecy,” he said. “Possibly diplomacy, on the off-chance that any of these people should end up in Arnes. And I will keep a wary eye out for danger.”
--
“No, I don’t think so,” Kell confirmed. They’d never, in all their lives, simply been able to move in crowds. The closest he had come was in Grey London, but even there, a black eye could catch attention.
Some part of Kell thrilled at it a little, thinking about it a bit more. He had been so concerned about Rhy that it had been nearly impossible to enjoy most of this -- although the landscape of Middle Earth was stunning. Even Kell couldn’t be indifferent to that. Red, White, and Grey London might have all been very different, but Kell had only ever been allowed in cities. So much open, green space was almost overwhelming to him.
But this was the sort of thing that Rhy had almost schemed for -- a chance for them to just be in a place and enjoy it without drawing attention.
“A wary eye so that you make certain it finds you,” Kell quipped dryly.
…
That was something of a relief. Rhy had played at being a commoner, but he was not sure how long he could hold up that kind of ruse. He wanted to get to know this world and the people in it, to ask all his questions, which meant he would likely also have to field questions in return, and he only had one world, one life to draw from. He would have to be exceptionally careful about not giving away any important details, and Rhy was not sure he could balance that well with his curiosity. It would be much easier if he could simply be himself.
He chuckled softly at the quip. “No, not yet,” he said lightly. “I’ve had enough to last me at least a few weeks.”
--
He suspected they both had, even though Rhy had survived far more turmoil and pain that he had just yet.
They deserved some piece for the foreseeable future. Kell doubted they would get it quite in the measure that they wanted, but he also fervently hoped that they would never again face a threat quite as great as Osaron. There would be other battles, both magical and not, but Vitari and Osaron had changed them, their world.
“Then it’ll be safe for me to get a deck of cards?” Kell asked.
…
Rhy’s eyes lit up. “That’s an excellent idea.”
He would have happily just sat here and kept his brother company, but a game of cards between the two of them would serve just as well. It would probably work even better, by keeping their minds preoccupied enough not to slide into the darkness that always seemed to be waiting for both of them.