REXANNA
paint my spirit gold
She was happy to oblige to the movements that Bastien came over to adjust. Her leg, angled just so slightly different and her dress adjusted over her arm. Her eyes lingered on him as he made the adjustments, and offered him a genuine, gentle smile as he spoke. She wanted to snort at the response, but something about his compliments now seemed… more true? Before she had imagined them as any person would, compliments to make even the most mundane seem vibrant. But now, to hear him utter it in a place where they could simply be together hit home a bit harder than normal. Her eyes shuttered slightly as he pressed the kiss to her forehead, her eyelashes fluttering slightly before she opened her lids to watch him move back to the canvas and keep the position that he had adjusted. She wasn’t very familiar with modeling, spending most of her time trying to stay out of sight, but there was a portrait done of her when she was crowned and she tapped into that stillness every time she posed for Bastien.
But as he sketched, he began to speak of the issue at hand. And for a moment, there was a small look of concern that crossed her face. But it was gone as soon as he mentioned he’d been distracted by it. Inhaling a bit deeply, she regained her pose and thought about the entire ordeal. “Ah, well. I was at the gathering to watch those that descended upon the demon and…” She paused for a brief moment. “I was targeted? I think I might have been the one that started it in a way?” Her tone was uncertain, but she remembered as Rory glared at her, his eyes full of icy daggers as the words left his lips when she had done nothing wrong but be in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Rory, he singled me out and spoke as though I were the one that caused it. And well, you know me, I couldn’t just let it go.” She said, glancing to him with a small twist of a lip in a smile that almost seemed a bit wolfish.
Seemed a bit darker than what Bastien had probably ever seen on her lips.
“I told him that we were all there for the same purpose, and it did no good to blame Outlanders versus Naturals. I told him over Longnight that I had abandoned their warnings and concerns and opened the door at the Rathskeller to let Jigano and Rory in. Rory, who was burned and bleeding and likely didn’t remember the ordeal.” She paused for a moment, eyes perhaps a bit distant. “He said I should have let him die. And well… Things went south after that. I went to Deimos after, to talk about it all.” She added, uncertain if Bastien even knew the brooding dark man that shared a similar history to Rexanna in different worlds, in different lives. “Deimos and I have a bit of a shared roundabout history.” She offered, wanting to shrug but remaining the pose. “I’m afraid I’m a bit stuck in the middle – no chance to avoid it even if I wanted to.”
