the replays run for you

R E X A N N A this is not your destruction There was something to be said about the man beside her – that he seemed so similar and yet different from the one she recalled. There, in that other land, he spoke very little but enough to where the point got across. Here, it wasn’t any different. The similarities in her recollection to now grew stronger the longer she sat beside him, but as she expressed her discontent and he remained silent, listening to her, she felt like a mere child whose parent simply stopped to listen in the attempt to sate their curiosities and their voices. But it felt different when she had finished her speech, of her promise to him open in the air, that should he have her she’d never betray his trust again. That is, if he allowed his trust to her once more. When he finally did speak, his gaze lingering on the wall behind the bar, her gaze lingered on her cup – simply watching him through her peripheral vision. His voice reached out to her, in a way that deep down she knew was far truer than anything she could’ve said of the strange land where these two strangers had known each other – had even been friends of sorts at one point. But his attention slipped to her again, and she turned her own head to catch those familiar blue eyes – piercing and so cold that her heart thundered in her chest in worry and anticipation. It wasn’t so much an apology, or forgiveness so much as it was a hope for a second round, to prove that she could be so much better and so much more than she ever had been. That the half royal blooded daughter of an affair, a prisoner of two kingdoms, could be something more than her name and her previous actions. But then he spoke and smiled and she felt the air whoosh out of her chest, as her heart squeezed one last final tug on her lungs and relaxed, her pulse simmering from what seemed like a rolling boil with the final set of words. Rexanna offered him her own smile in return, lifting her glass in a kind of mock toast. “Here’s to learning from mistakes.” She offered Deimos a slight wink before taking a drink from her glass, hoping to prove to herself that she might make better decisions here – that she had been under the thrall of far too many men in her life and that life to continue to make the same mistakes. A cage was still a cage, regardless of how beautiful it were decorated. And she vowed to herself silently that she wouldn’t – couldn’t – be caged again. But then, she shifted the conversation in an attempt to not bring up more information than she was intending on sharing. Despite having known him previously – she was certain – she didn’t entirely know him here either. Better to have her life story found out over time rather than spread it around in gossip and easy conversation. “Do you happen to have any idea what this place is? It’s all so different from where I was, despite how I got here.” She half laughed, looking to Deimos to see if he held any information on that front, or if he was just as uncertain as she was. this is your birth