RORY
Maea's shock was understandable: had the roles been reversed, Rory would likely have done a you did what?!. He was intimately familiar with the dangers of Long Night, that you were not supposed to go outside, no matter what. And guiltily he thought of locking his door against the fox who sneaked into his barn, of thinking him lost to the monsters of the dark, with nothing but the Luxere between him and death...Yet something as stupid as an object, a monument, a wild and fledgling hope, had had him riding out into the dark.
It was bizarre that none of them, Wessex included, had died.
But Vi? No, Vi had nothing to do with it. Gods had nothing to do with it. The realization left him feeling lonely and desolate as he stood before the Shrine where others were answered. Rory was Abandoned. No God looked after him. He swallowed, then scoffed.
"If I complained, it was all in your head," he said, vaguely annoyed. Complained? He hadn't complained. There was a difference between being frustrated and complaining. Rory knew what he was, and who he was, and what the Gods thought (or didn't) of him. Irrationally, he was angry, angry with them, angry at the barrier, at whatever had caused the Spire to be erected, at.. at three hundred years after the fact still being Abandoned for something his distant ancestor had done.
Or maybe they just hated the smell of magic.
Talking of the Valair family was more mundane. Safer. Less risk of Rory biting anyone's face off. He snorted. "A nice brother who should've picked a nicer wife," he said. Rory liked Noah well enough, and technically he had no issues with Lienna, but the woman had always bothered him in some way and if the way she was treating Maea was anything to go by, well.. his opinions of her certainly didn't improve.
Once, Rory would've thought the bond between sister and brother unbreakable: that was how it had been for most of his life. Family first. Then she had met that dude and everything had gone to shit and now he didn't even know where she was, out in that desolate darkness. He shivered. "At least we're safe here until morning comes again," he offered helplessly. The Spark Bird was seeing to that.
as if you were on fire from within,
the moon lives in the lining of your skin.
the moon lives in the lining of your skin.
