it's not by bone but yet by blade
can break the magic that the devil made
He watched her fuss over her little girl, old memories pinching at his wounded heart. With careful precision he gently set aside thoughts of a grey woman, her vibrant eyes and bold personality. And the family they made. So long ago, now. Curse his goddamn faithful heart. And curse the lack of it in hers.
He swallowed and nodded solemnly. Jinju was well. She was near, as always, doing everything she could to help. "She's not far," he offered aloud, "just keeping busy. It helps her get through everything."
Then it was down to business, a topic they both knew they needed to face sooner rather than later. He'd help in whatever ways he could.
He listened.. then turned his head to the side to think. He would prefer they go to the fairies, but he could see as the leader and having bad experiences with them in the past, it may not be as wise an option as they previously had hoped. The fairies had proven themselves time and time again to be traitorous, thoughtless creatures without a care for the people in Beqanna save for how they might be able to play them as pawns.
Maybe they weren't all that way, but the benevolent ones at least seemed outnumbered by the apathetic ones. Why else would the innocent have been so forsaken by them? Selfish and cruel.
He chose not to share his opinions on them. Hate only bred more hate and he wouldn't feed it. "It no longer seems the wisest option," he agreed quietly with heavy regret. In a better world, there would be more logical reason to be found. But not here. No longer.
He took a deep breath and sighed it out slowly, gave a little shrug. "The Taiga before, as you know, was run far different from what seems to be the ingrained default tradition. To the rest of the world, I was King." The word still sat so foreign on his tongue and he grimaced. He'd never introduced himself as such and he'd corrected those that had assumed it of his position. "But to those that truly mattered, the Taigans, the Loyal Ones, I was only Ruan. Their servant with the loudest voice."
If anything bad befell them, it was on him. If they wanted any kind of change, he made it happen. Every mistake was his fault, and every success belonged to the Taigans as a whole.
"This was after Reagan left, of course," he said even quieter. "You can choose to continue as I had, or however you want. How she chose it, we were not King and Queen as Romek had originally had things, but we were Alphas of a pack." He shrugged again. "It didn't suit me or what I felt like the Taiga stood for. There is just as much strength, if not more so, for a land to be run with a servant of the people rather than a King or Queen. Titles mean nothing.
"Actions are everything."
Even the word servant probably leads one to think of them as weak, but they would be so gravely mistaken. The Taiga was a unit, held a stronger, tighter bond with each other than any other land could've boasted. Or the majority of them. Clearly, not every last Taigan had been capable of the equal loyalty and integrity as they held themselves and each other to. A personal fault in the truly weak.
They would've been chewed up and spit out had the Taigans been given the chance to take care of the problem themselves. In that light, perhaps the fairies had been merciful to a select few. The only ones undeserving of it.
and it's not by fire but what's forged in flame
can drown the sorrows of a huntsman's pain
