i am the mace, the map, the fall and the high
These visits are so rarely social these days. But then, if his brother had wanted those types of visits, he would have come to Reave long before now. Before time had begun to weigh quite so heavily on them. Before the twisting threads of the future had forced Reave to come to him. Before the tug of the diverging paths they must take had become quite so powerful.
Nash might look at him and remember the adventurous colt he had been, but Reave had long ago left that youth in the dust. He had grown into a stallion shaped by the machiavellian mechanisms of this world they live in. And he had thrived in it. Reave knows his brother well enough to know Nash wants the world to be good and just and fair. A world where bad things simply don’t happen.
Reave though, he had been forged in the fires of a world that is the very opposite of that. He knows fairness and justice is not the true nature of this continent. Perhaps they had needed Nashua’s vision to lead them when the world had been peaceful. But it is not peace that stirs now, and the North needs someone who can take the cruelties of this existence and twist them to suit their purpose.
A grin slips across his lips when Nashua states he would like to reclaim the magic their mother had once won long ago. “We agree on that much,” Reave accedes, his bright gaze glittering with intent. He has already been working on such a plan, as it happens. But his timing must be perfect, if he wished to achieve his ends. His grin widens. “I am working on it.”
The smile slips to something much more subtle when he mentions Cheri. He tilts his head, eyeing his brother curiously. He doesn’t say anything immediately, instead waiting until Nashua admits he intends to leave the responsibility of the North to Reave.
The armored Guardian watches his elder sibling for a long moment, the silence heavy between them, before finally replying. “If that is the case, then you should know Cheri is not thinking of the North while she plots.” He pauses, wondering how much Nashua already suspects. “But she needs us.” A sly humor crosses his features at that, gone as quick as it had come. “She didn’t say much to me, but she didn’t need to.” He laughs abruptly at that. “I think she feared I might try talking her out of it.”
Drawing a breath, Reave shifts, his feet suddenly restless. He glances to the east. Towards Nerine’s distant coast. When he turns back to the Freyr, his expression is serious once more, a weighty knowledge in his blue eyes. “If we are indecisive in this, the North will fracture.” His expression hardens as he holds his brother’s gaze. “I won’t let that happen.”
If the North’s esteemed leader intends to trust Reave with its future, then he would need to trust him now. For the sake of their kingdom, it could not be a conditional thing.
reave
@Nashua