RENWICK
Renwick had always expected a hundred different things, when he packed for his ranging trips. Thieves, travelers, the damned and the fortunate. There were a hundred different paths this trip could of taken him, but none of them in his wildest imaginings would of lead him to this moment. There is something profound about this chance encounter, he wouldn't be surprised if it was the divine will of something higher than made sure the Knight met the Silver Queen. He cannot say, if it is a good thing. Not yet. Later perhaps, maybe after the conversation has flowed between these two remnants, or maybe when he's safely back in the confines of four walls, wrapped in blankets with the crackle of the fire in his ears.
For now, he's focused on the mare in front of him, who is every ounce the warrior he is. Who would not hesitate to lunge at him if he so much as stepped over the fragile line between them. A challenge it would be, but he hoped, some small part of him, that it would not come to that. That he would not have to trade blows with this wraith of silver and smoke. A cream colored hoof touched the water, and it's not the relief he had expected to feel, when he had first spied the starry lake.
There's something strangely cathartic in this. There is a chance here at understanding, if War and the games of Sovereign's were ever to be understood. Some weren't. He doubted he would ever understand using children as warriors, other than to rob the future from them, and rob the enemy of their sanity. Renwick had seen the effects they'd had one the rest of the mares and stallions who had also marched on Rhen's orders, rose to the occasion for glory and duty. How many eyes, scattered across Denocte, no longer burned with the same ferocity they once did? All those fires, so bright, so hopeful, so ambitious. Extinguished.
It's uncomfortable, to hear the mare apologize for her own fate, a fate she had no choice in, just like all the others who had winked out of existence at the behest of the power hungry and cruel. Jarring to hear the sympathy which poured over that simple word that held so much weight. She is not the one that should be apologizing, but then again, the ones who should be are dead. You can't pry apologies from the dead, and he's sure their ghosts would of refused, stubborn and terrible even in death. "You do not have to apologize." Silence lingered, if only for a moment, before a strained smile appeared on his maw. "It is Zolin's fault, it is his enabler's fault." He stated, venom laced around every syllable. Oh the smile might have been there, however fickle and weak, but his eyes remained cold. There is not a hint of warmth to be found there.
I can’t.
A cream dipped ear flicked back at the answer. Confusion is met by confusion, his smile replaced by a thin line and a quirked bow. Why wouldn't she of taken it off? He only knew himself, what he would of done in that position as he is now. He would of wrenched the damned thing from his neck, chucked the blasted thing into the fires and watched it melt. He does not know the meaning behind such a collar, the deep rooted necessity embedded within, set forth by the cruel. Momentarily, he is distracted by the waves of molten silver which fell and curled when she inclined her head, there are few things he's ever found so lovely. It is a small reprieve from the reality that is them. Their winding, weaving paths that have crossed. In that moment between each breath, each grain in the sand. He can forget the sum of what she is. What he is.
Do you know how they trained us?
"No." The moment ended with a harsher reality. He does not know how they turned children into killers. How they conditioned them to fight with such cold determination. He understood then, as she elaborated, why she had never tried to remove it. Why it hung there, grim and smug, after those responsible had tasted death. It hit him like a punch in the gut, a wash of freezing water to the unprepared senses, a cruel taste of steel in the dead of night. "We had heard rumors...well...the soldiers guessed really...but...we never found out." There was no one to ask, no one with the answers, and the ones who had them chose death. Nausea is a familiar thing. He's sparred with it before, too much ale, too much over indulgence, too many dead little eyes. Too many bad memories from the war which chased him in dreams. The one time he'd boarded a ship in the port thinking it was a good idea, when the storms had blown in off the terminus sea.
Renwick wanted to know the truth, more than the guess work, the idle musings of downtrodden soldiers looking for answers to justify what they saw. But he is not the one who lived through it, not the one who experienced what it was like to be unmade and reforged like that. He does not want to tread where it might still be opened wounds for her, even if he's never been one to hold back questions before. Though those kind of questions had never been anything like this.
…but sometimes I think there might be more to it than that.
"How so?" He latched onto that instead, the hesitant little add on. Moved on from the questioning look which swirled in his misty colored eyes, turning them into a storm at sea, channeled the curiosity of his prior wandering into that instead. His hoof removed itself from the water's edge, the lake abandoned in favor of this creature who has captivated him so, for good or for ill.
TAG; @
NOTES; <3
