VIENDA | MORNING AFTER BREAKFAST
Charity shook her head, allowing the taller blond to finish undressing her with a strange sense of disconnection, as though her brain couldn’t connect the dots. It wasn’t a lie, of course he wouldn’t lie to her, but it didn’t mean that her father wouldn’t. She didn’t want to listen, but he pleaded on waivering feet, and with a soft sound of concern the blonde reached for him even as the Seventen helped her finish undressing. It was a strange act, but right now, the blonde needed something normal to let her mind recover. There was a knifes edge between insanity and sanity, and right now the pianist was teetering on the edge, just needing an extra shove to fall the wrong way. The bath, the mundane normality of it all, kept her balancing.
As she stepped into the hot water, Charity sank down to sit, tugging the tie from her hair and hugging her knees as the platinum tresses floated gently around her shoulders. Her violet eyes watched Rhys as he undressed and moved to join her, eyebrow arching slightly.
“Gale Saunders? You mean the ersehole that could have literally been your double? You saved him?” Her ears heard the her and the them, but she brushed it aside as a slip of the tongue. A mistake of words in the confusing and heavy conversation they now both seemed to be unwilling participants in. Rhys continued his story, jumping to Gale’s rescuing of himself in a confusing twist, but Charity listened. He had pleaded she listen and she had promised.
Gale revealed they knew me, that they were my sister, that their human mother—my human mother—had been Ol' Theo's household help.
Her head lifted off her knees slowly, brow drawing deeply and mouth moving without sound at first. Sister…Gale was a woman? She’d kissed a woman, who had convinced Rhys that she was his sister. She closed her eyes, shaking her head, hearing him continue and fighting to listen. Fighting to understand.
“No, no, no Rhys stop. STOP!” Charity said suddenly, plunging her hands into the water and sitting up straighter, anger flaring not at Rhys but at the woman that had deceived so many.
“It doesn’t make clocking sense. It makes no clocking sense. Gale is, he’s—she’s—a liar. She’s lied to the world about her gender, what makes you think she’s not lying about this?” The troubled, confused, hurt man continued and the petite blonde allowed his hands to brush hers under the water, not drawing away from his touch. Her heart ached at the sound of his voice. Even if she didn’t believe Gales lies, Rhys did. And that’s all that should clocking matter. Guilt burned in her chest, he’d let her fall into his lap and tried so hard to pick up all her shattered pieces, it was time for her to do the same.
Elmonton?
Charity’s vision blurred slightly as tears stung her eyes. He was leaving her? No, Alioe, he couldn’t be. Her hands curled into his for a moment, mind racing and heart fluttering. The taller man pulled her hand towards him, pressing it to his chest, and whilst he panicked about everything that could very well fall to pieces over this possible news, the galdor processed. He was absolutely right. No one could find out. No one. He wouldn’t just loose his career and his status, there was a good chance he would be arrested.
Or worse. If Damen found out, Charity had no doubt in her mind he would call for the man to be hanged by the neck until dead. It wasn’t common, but it happened. It definitely happened.
She watched him slip under the water, his questions left unanswered whilst the battered pale creature let herself think. It was insane, the entire thing was utterly insane. A wick in galdori clothing. A man who was really a woman. A whole life lived as a lie, that even the occupant themselves wasn't aware was a lie.
And where are you going to be in all of this Charity Ann D’Arthe? When the pieces fall, where will you be?
Rhys burst through the surface finally, rivulets of water running from his strawberry blonde locks and down his face, hiding what may have been more tears. She looked at him, hearing his words of self doubt and fear, and took a leap off the knifes edge.
Into insanity.
Shifting across the heated water, Charity climbed into his lap, her delicate hands holding his face tenderly as her eyes held his own.
“Of course you are Rhys. You’re the same boy I would fawn over at the cafeteria, the same boy who showed me the world from a very different point of view. You’re the same man that fought for everything he cared about again and again, the same man that saw the frighted teenager lost under all the dirt and ugliness of adulthood.” Moving with care, the petite creature wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him close and closing her eyes as she held him.
“You are still Rhys Valentin, my Rhys Valentin, and I love you. It doesn't matter what happens, wick or galdor or gods-be-damned human for all I care. You are the same inside and out, do you hear me? You are still you.” Drawing back, she offered a small smile, brushing his dripping hair from his face.
“And I am not going anywhere that you aren’t. I’m here for you Rhys, with you, and we’ll hold off the wolves together. You and I. We belong together Valentin, our whole lives we belonged together, and nothing is going to break us apart again. Not my father, and not yours.” Searching his face, looking into his crystalline gaze with genuine sincerity, the Captains daughter kissed him gently. A soft kiss of acceptance, and hope.
“Take me with you, to Elmonton. I want to be there with you, for you, every inch of this journey.” The blonde stroked his face again, humming a tentative laugh through her nose.
“Explains why you’ve always been so good at kicking the erse of all those pathetic school boys on the Lawn. Why use magic when you can just…” She pretended to punch his cheek with a ‘pow’ sound and a smile.