R
where is Reich?
"He will be here." Came Isorath's lilted reply, lilac eyes coming to rest upon the red woman who spoke out in the crowd. She is foreign to him, not among the pictures and names carefully inked within his memory tome to pick from and his head tilted with mild interest. A newcomer perhaps? Or someone visiting from one of the lands now denied access to the City of Night and Stars?
It does not cross his mind that she would be the sister of his beloved, and so he does not linger upon her long, though he waited patiently for her to speak. Her outburst isn't a surprise, it is a flash of red against a vermillion sky, the whip of sandy winds upon the dunes. But it is just that, hot air striking against mountains and ancient towers. The Emissary would of questioned how much she knew, in the grand scheme of things, did she know the beginning, middle and end? Had she spoken to those afflicted and affected. Did she know the price of carrying a nation?
He doubted it.
But she did not give him the pleasure to respond, and so he doesn't. Not to her at least, and instead turned his attention to the next who spoke. A look of pleasant curiousity washed up upon the shores of his sharp features. The Champion of Community, doing her duty no less. A smile finally broke on his pale maw at her words, proud even. She showed promise, she did not say her piece and scurry away.
"You may, of course, send Ravens to those who are dear to you." He replied smoothly, the lilted tongue of a diplomat in his element is apparent. "We do not wish to restrict that pleasure from you, and those who cherish you deeply. Our isolation is one of a physical presence, so that those who wish to wreak havoc, cannot." His gaze then flicked across the crowd, searching and observing, before they returned to Lyra.
"The fire in the pass is to ensure that others stay away, a message if you will. You may not agree with it, and that is your right." Isorath paused and then he sighed. "I do not ask for you to agree with it, it would be foolish to have you follow blindly and place your trust in someone who you do not know. Or perhaps someone, who you have heard things whispered in the shadows about." It is then he offered a thin lipped smile, he's sure that there are half-truths and deliberately omitted details. "It would of been easy, too easy, to keep the Gates open and allow the cycle to continue."
"For freedom, so you say. For the people, for the better of us. But there is no freedom in the reputation Denocte has gained. Only chains of distrust and wariness, rumors and whispers that will dog you where ever you go. Denocte has done wrong, just as Novus has done wrong to us in turn." Once more he paused, this time deliberately, slitted pupils narrowed further to slits. Swallowed by the cold lilac they swam in.
"Those of you who have done nothing wrong, have nothing to fear from this."
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