Broken Circles

Part V

Now faced with the very person that she had been searching for, Yvana must work out if he is friend or foe and she must determine what she can do to escape her current predicament. Answers are right there in front of her, but try as she might, she still cannot quite reach them...

And then someone else walks in to throw a spanner in the works, exposing a truth that she had not expected, making the situation 10x more strenuous than she thought possible

Author's note: I am having *wayyyyy* too much fun with this story, you have no idea XD

He stood in the doorway, not confused nor surprised, but with an aura of relief, as strange as it was, for his other was taped to a chair, a hostage to the Voltaris, yet his demeanour as he lingered did not depict any form of worry nor concern. He clung to the handle of the half-open door and his fingers twitched as he wanted to move, to speak, but lacked the confidence to do so, as though, subconsciously, something was holding him back like he wasn't allowed to do nor say anything. As much time as he had been away – supposedly missing – he didn't look as though any struggle nor strife had taken him. He looked surprisingly well – arguably more so than when he had a home and material belongings that defined him as a person; yet on looking into his eyes a darker shade of red than the burgundy shadows that surrounded him in the night, trouble was the glaze that washed over them. To be standing where he was, it appeared, he had to have sacrificed a lot – an internal war, perhaps.

Even on looking at his clothes and to no change as who he was before, they were torn and tattered. He was never the sort to dress as though he maintained care to himself, but these were not the usual comfortably torn clothes that he would have worn by choice. Despite his figure being no different and his face well-rested, physically, it looked as though he'd had to put himself in strenuous positions to be here. One could not discern, based on appearance, just what Riorden had to do to himself – or others – to appear how he was. Unlike Yvana, he had brushed his hair and it still draped over one side of his head as it had always.

He still cared, even but a tad.

As he lingered, Yvana also couldn't move, but her paralysis was undoubtedly shock, awash with amazement. It wasn't just that she had laid her tired eyes on her other for the first time in ten years and it wasn't just that he was alright (to look at, at least); but it was that his reaction to her situation was not as she had expected. If he was as innocent as she had hoped him to be, then he would have wasted no time in freeing her and helping her escape, and yet, every second that he delayed silent, her feelings grew into anger and betrayal, yet she could do nothing. She could not even chastise him aloud.

With a quick glance over his shoulder, Riorden quietly closed the door, but not with the secrecy of someone who was defying orders or sneaking around – not like the care and attention he would have to his sounds as he snuck back into their house when he knew he would be scolded for his movements. As he stepped into the pathetic light that shone in the room, his skin showed his hardships for it had become flawed and tainted. He was known for his scraps with his peers where one would have the other in a headlock and jeering them on, and it was only occasionally that he would need to defend himself in a hardening fight at a bar, inebriated or otherwise, and so the sight of scratches and bruises were not abnormal to the Kaltaris' eyes. In fact, she was quite often cleaning them, herself, and using the advantage of a captive audience to convey her disapproval for his petty fights. But these... These were of something stronger, something more meaningful. He was riddled with them, from head to toe and all varying in sizes.

He paused in front of her, his gaze no different from when he had walked in – at best indifferent about what he saw. Yvana was not scared. She was uncertain. She couldn't be sure that the man stood in front of her was the same Riorden that she was searching for and, if that were the case, she couldn't be sure of what stood in his place.