He leaned forward, hands braced on her knees without actually leaning on her, and pecked her nose with a cheeky smile. "I'm not safe, but I appreciate your concern. I know what I'm doing, Lily darling, however uncoordinated I might seem at times." He couldn't help but add, "And you look more adorable than stern. Just saying."
“You’re so dramatic.” She said, with just a bit too much fondness for her words to carry any bite, scrunching up her nose. Her cheeks flamed as he kept talking, and she lifted a hand to cover the lower half of her face. Part of her wanted to deny his statement, but she knew that would do any good. No matter what she said, he apparently always found her adorable. “I do not.” She said instead, shaking her head slightly.
"Sweetie, I am drama," Rhydar said with a smirk as he raised his hand to tap her nose, then her hand. "And yes, you do. You know it with that blush you're trying so hard to hide from me." He pulled back from Lily, letting go of her knees to lean back and brace himself with the saddle.
“I have no clue what you’re talking about.” She mumbled, looking away to avoid his gaze. “How exactly does one be drama, as though that’s an occupation?” She asked, very obviously focusing on the first thing he had said instead of how blushy she was. She much preferred ignoring that.
"It's an expression and exaggeration, my dear, however much I'd like to think of myself as the King of Drama." He grinned and swept his hand in an exaggerated bow. "But one can be drama if they incorporate dramatics into everything they do. See example A for reference." He gestured to his face, grin twisted into a lopsided smile.
Lily laughed at that, the sound muffled by her hand but still obviously a laugh. “Be drama. If you say so, dear. I have to say though, you feel a bit more just dramatic, as opposed to drama incarnate.” She said, raising an eyebrow at him playfully.
He stuck his tongue out at her, then licked his lips and adjusted his position so he was sitting side saddle again. "Fine fine. Be that way," he said playfully, his smile clear he was just joking. He then leaned over and kissed Lily's forehead before turning around and taking the reigns once again.
"Now can we try to stay seated properly? Pretty please?" She asked, trying not to linger on the movement of his tongue across his lips. The Fates knew if she did, she'd be very far from functioning. So she didn't. At least, not right at that moment.
He chuckled and reached back for her hand, shaking his head. "Alright, but only because you asked nicely. And because there's a fork in the road, but that's totally not why I turned around." He lightly kicked the mare into a gallop and kept an eye out for said fork.
"Of course that's not why." She assured playfully, happily linking her fingers through his. Hand-holding was easy, and she was extremely glad he was alright with holding her hand as often as he did. Part of her, despite knowing it was sort of stupid, almost expected him to get tired of it. And yet here he was, reaching for her hand.
He wrapped her arm around his waist again, keeping a hold of her hand as he did so, and adjusted the reigns so he could use them with just one hand. Nevarra snorted as the fork in the road appeared, as if warning her rider, and Rhydar barely twitched the reigns, and she was already headed in that direction. "I wonder if the farm has blueberries this year," Rhydar mused, changing the subject to the farm they were heading to. "They do it sometimes, and I make sure to have a batch shipped from them every time they grow them."
She hummed thoughtfully, giving his hand a squeeze for whatever reason. "Mmmm, strawberries and blueberries. They'd make a great tart together. Oh! I wonder if Cinthia would mind helping me make one." She was mostly talking to herself, though her excitement was obvious. "You could taste test, too. Fresh fruit always makes for the best baked goods."
"Wolf is the one to go to for desserts, but I'm sure Cinthia wouldn't mind offering a set of hands if you knew what you were doing. I'm always down for some taste testing though, so count me in." Rhydar smiled to himself, knowing she was mainly talking to herself and finding it rather cute, especially paired with her excitement over fruits and baking.
"Wolf? Maybe I'll see if I can get both of them in on it. Baking cookies and cupcakes with them was fun. I just have to make sure you don't mess up any lattice-work." That was when she focused back in on the two of them, instead of just her own mind, to jokingly reference his icing mishap. "My mother used to set aside a whole weekend at the end of berry season to make as many baked goods as possible. One time, Cassia got caught stealing a pie, and Māmā put her on barn duty for an entire month. Apparently, it was her fifth pie that season." Lily said, huffing a laugh at her own memories.
He detangled his fingers from the reigns to reach back and poke Lily. He wasn't aiming anywhere specific, so he couldn't see where he was poking. "Hey, I did no such thing. I don't know what you're talking about." He fell silent as she started talking again, listening to her story, a smile twitching onto his face when she talked about her sister stealing the pie. "Cassia sounds like an amazing woman."
Lily let out a small sound as he poked her stomach, squirming away from him but keeping her hand in his. When he mentioned Cassia, she looked up at the sky, thinking. "She would be now, yeah. Eighteen…in a month. She was such a fun kid though, always getting up to trouble, especially related to anything sweet. Had one of the biggest sweet tooths ever." I'm going to miss my sister's eighteenth birthday. I've already missed so many of them.
He lightly squeezed her hand in reassurance. He couldn't think of much to say, and he figured whatever he would say would just make her feel worse, so he kept his mouth shut and nodded to let her know he was listening. He focused on the sound of Nevarra's heavy hooves hitting the dirt road at a steady rhythm. He got slightly distracted from it, briefly zoning out as the sound took over his senses.
She took a deep breath, biting her lip and looking back down at Rhydar's back. After a moment, she wrapped her other arm around him, hiding her face in his shoulder. "I miss them." She said quietly, her voice muffled. "If they're even-" She couldn't even finished that sentence, not wanting to think about that. About her family being…anything but alive. "I've missed nine years of birthdays for five people."
Rhydar jumped slightly when she hugged him, but he quickly recovered, glancing behind him in an automatic reaction to the sound of her distressed and quiet voice. He hated hearing her sound like that, especially when she's talking about her family. "They're alive, Lily," he said quietly, the first thing he could think of to say to her. "And you'll see them again."
"I don't-I don't know that." Lily whispered, her hold on him tightening briefly. "I've looked. I haven't stopped but I can't-find them." No matter what she did, she never could find them. They had disappeared, leading her to fear the worst had befallen her family. That her sisters hadn't ever made it away after they'd been separated, that the rest of her family had been caught and taken and sold. That she was the only one alive.
His voice was firm as he spoke. "I'll look. The twins'll look. Magnus and Kora will look. Demitri and the whole damn spy team of his will look if need be," His voice softened even more as he added, "We'll find them, Lily. I promise." He couldn't promise them being alive, but he could at least promise her this. His mind was already spinning with how he could help her find her family. He knew what it was like to lose something of such importance, and he wouldn't let her lose hope like he had.
The surety in his voice, the offer of help from both him and his family(they might not have agreed to it, because they weren't there, but something, oddly enough, told her they would.), was almost enough to make her break down right there. And though the wicked little voice in the back of her mind told her it was her problem, not theirs, that it was her job to find them, the rest of her wanted to accept the help. "Eight years. They've had eight years to disappear, and they did just that. Do you really-really think we can find them?"
"Demitri can find a needle in a haystack with his eyes covered and a timer ticking in his ear. The twins have a nasty habit of disappearing and never being found when they want to be, so I'm sure they can do the reverse. Magnus can scry, if you lend him some memories of them to borrow. Kora's just stubborn. I can make diamonds out of dirt." The surety remained as he spoke, and he turned over his shoulder to look at Lily as best as he could. "We'll find them."
Lily lifted her head, meeting his eyes and allowing herself, for the first time in almost a year, to hope. To hope they were alive, to hope she had a chance to find them, to hope they would take her back if she did. You're not the same person anymore. That was true, but thinking like that was exactly what had led to so many panic attacks and falling off searching. “Thank you.” She whispered, looking a few seconds away from tears. Happier tears, luckily, hopeful tears.
He turned some more so he could reach over and cup her cheek in his hand and rest his head against hers. "I'm always here for you, Lily," he whispered softly, his eyes searching hers and seeing them reflected back thanks to the glossy sheen the unshed tears created. He'd do anything to keep her from crying. He hated just the thought. He wasn't lying when he'd said they'd find her family. He would drag everyone into the search, even pulling rank if he needed to. He knew that it wasn't likely that it would come to that, but there was always the chance.