and at once I knew,
i was not magficent
He has always been watching. Perhaps it wasn’t supposed to be this way. They had always planned to come back, once Leander was old enough. But somehow, old age had crept up on him and Rayelle. It had turned them gray, had made their bones tired and brittle. He hardly even noticed then. It hadn’t really seemed to matter. They still had Leander. Kora was home in Beqanna and Rhy, certainly, was doing well. She was his electric girl, after all, and he had never doubted that she’d be fine.
It hadn’t matter, until one day, they simply didn’t wake up. So no, it wasn’t supposed to be this way. But maybe that was okay. Look what happened, after all.
They are waiting when the girls arrive. This time, Rhy looks alive and happy and well, of course he knows this is because she’s half dead now. She can cross from one world to the next. He’s been watching her (he loves them both, yes, but Rhy was always his electric girl). He can see the struggle, her daily trudge through a life she once loved so much. Life wasn’t the same for her now. But how could it be? She had one foot in each realm.
Still, he cannot help but smile, despite what he knows. Kora is the first to rush to them both, and he wraps her tightly in an embrace. His butterfly-hearted girl was anything but now, strengthened by the ice in her veins, through the trials she has lived through. She was still his quiet girl, but she’d be all right. Though he can’t help it, sometimes he still worries about her.
But hell, he worries about all his children. Even in death, that’s what parents do.
Rhy is next, coming to them slower, but of course, this isn’t the first time she’s been here. She’s giving Kora her moment first, but Riagan lifts his head from Kora and wraps himself around Rhy. He holds her there for a moment, and she buries into him, a little girl for just a second.
Eventually, he steps back, still smiling, taking his place by Rayelle. There was never any place for him. Not in life, and not in death. He’d cross the world, the universe, every realm imaginable, just to find her. ”Tell us everything,” he says simply, and then waits for his girls to speak.
