and when i breathed
my breath was lightning
She’s pretty sure she should be annoyed that other kingdoms are just waltzing around the Jungle like they own the place. And by other kingdoms, she means Magnus. She’s not unaware that he’s been here multiple times, calling on his heritage to earn him some unspoken place here. Rhy doesn’t go running to the Falls bringing guests, or the Gates even (though her family, though adoption, still rules that kingdom). But Lagertha didn’t seem to mind too terribly. And Scorch had done the same for Straia, giving the Queen of the Chamber a near blanket invite to come should she ever need anything. Blood was a powerful thing.
And really, Rhy was about the last horse to actually get annoyed by anything. Though there’d been something in her lately, something eating away at her good nature. Maybe it was something she couldn’t see, left over from the frozen sting on the monsters in space. Maybe it had poisoned her, something that didn’t attack the body so much as the mind. Because part of her wants to laugh and send them away. She doesn’t need strangers offering to give tours of the Jungle to more strangers. He may have grown up here, or whatever his ties were exactly, but he didn’t live here now. And he was one side of a war that Rhy wanted no part of.
But thankfully, Rhy is still Rhy on the outside (and most of the inside). Her smile is easy and never flickers, her gold-flecked eyes always pleasant. She is still mostly her, except for that dark part of her mind that whispers terrible things into one ear. But no one else would ever be able to tell, and for that, she is thankful. She’d make a terrible diplomat and even more terrible counter to Lagertha’s warrior nature if she couldn’t manage to be herself.
“Nice to meet you both,” she says, nothing to Cinzia and Magnus after they have said their piece. She focuses a bit on Magnus with a playful little grin. “I know. I’d be really terrible at my job if I didn’t know you had ties here, given the number of visits you've already made.” She chuckles slightly, her smile still easy and pleasant, and it’s obvious she’s making polite conversation. She doesn’t need to tell him how she knows, that she’s prone to slinking around while invisible. Invisibility is more useful when not everyone knows you can do it, after all.
“I suppose I should say come in, then.” She steps to the side as she says it, making it clear they are welcome in the Jungle. The dark part of her mind hisses slightly, wants to send them running. But still, Rhy smiles, and no one would ever know unless they could read her mind. She hates the dark little beast, hates that hiss in her head, and simultaneously wonders what it would be like to give in to it. “I’ll leave you two to it,” her grin broadening just slightly, like they are clearly on a date. She has no idea if it’s true, but she can’t help the smile anyway. “Just yell if you need something.”
rhy
the electric lioness of riagan and rayelle
