Waning of the Sun Gods

Rain that Falls on May 9th: IV

We sit there in shock together for longer than is reasonable even under the circumstances.

I say sit, because at some point the enormity of what he had just done occurred fully to him and he fell back to the floor. Not in a kneel this time, just with his legs askew on the sun mosaic below him.

Even loyal Rital, normally so quick-witted, didn't seem to know what to do with themself. Every once in a while they would clap their hands as if to say let's get back to business! But it never snapped any of us out of our reverie.

Finally, I stand. The long train of my dress trails behind me like liquid gold flowing down the stairs as I crouch down by his side.

"Well, Yendai. You have my attention."

He laughs, an unpleasant sound for how I mistake it for the beginnings of a sob. "That wasn't my intention when I came in. I sw– I mean, I promise."

"No, I don't imagine that it was," I muse aloud. "Although, it's what we're left with despite ourselves."

At my last word he looks up. "'Ourselves'? That's not the royal we."

"No, Yendai. If you'd been paying closer attention, you'd notice that I didn't use it initially. Once we're at the part of our relationship where people find it appropriate to swear at me, I tend to drop it."

"Oh no," he suddenly says, looking pathetically sorry as his hair droops sadly over his eyes. "I thought I was just loudly thinking it when I said that last little bit."

"You were not."

He flops onto the floor, completely ignoring how this exposes his neck and stomach to someone who still might be hostile to him. There is a reason, good reasons I like to think, that I thought him naïve.

"Oh, what have I done," he says, still clearly in his sullen mood. "Invoking the void – what was I thinking?"

"I haven't the faintest of ideas, myself." By all accounts it was not a nice place, after all. Not that there were actual accounts, just an old legend about what happened to oath-takers that didn't fulfill their promises.

He sits up, leaning back on his hands as he glares at me. It doesn't look half as serious as I know he is now capable of. "You're not being very helpful."

"I'm under no obligation to be," I tell him with a smile beginning to play across my face. "But–"

He shuts his mouth, clearly having been prepared to complain about me to my face again.

"–Since you have so determinedly mentioned me in the words of your oath, I feel obligated to at least talk this out now. Telra, you say? I don't think that I knew the name of your village before you said it."

"I know you didn't." It sounds so uncharacteristically – and when had I begun to develop an opinion of Yendai's character? – dreary for him.

"Saying you'll make it free of me is very dramatic wording you know. It's unfortunately ambiguous – you don't know how the oath will take it. It could be as you probably intended, free of my reign and it's own independent fiefdom or what have you. Or it could simply mean I never step foot on the premises."

"If you're just doing to gloat before throwing me in the dungeon," he says. "Please don't bother. There's no need to rub it in. I know I screwed up. That was stupid and I deserve what I've got coming. Is that what you wanted to hear? Will you stop it now?"

I purse my lips and narrow my sunlit eyes at him. "Does it sound like I'm mocking you, Yendai? I'm taking this quite seriously."

At the look he gives me, I adjust my phrasing. "Well, most seriously. I'm... charmed by the novelty of this whole situation."