"Even if they taste bad, you still have to drink them," Rhys trailed off, "I was like you before, but eventually I learned to control it.""So that means he doesn"t take them now?" Lyn stared at the tablets, but he took these out of his own pocket right, "Are you keeping these for somebody else?"
"Yeah, for you."
Lyn sighed in defeat. There"s no use in arguing with him now when her whole body aside from her hands is aching.
"Most of the times, it"s used for me."
For himself? But hasn"t he already overcome it? Lyn looked at him questioningly, only to see a pained expression on his face, "While it"s clear that my affinity towards the darkness isn"t like yours. People who use dark magic, eventually experience some kind of side effect. I have experienced no backlash since I first started using it; it isn"t because I don"t have any. It"s simply because it hasn"t happened yet," Rhys reached over and ran his hand through his hair.
He always did this whenever something troubled him, "Do you know why that is?"
"I don"t."
Rhys is very good at lying, and yet Lyn knew him well by now. She could tell he was holding back some information. Perhaps he simply doesn"t want to share them without any evidence. Then again, even if Rhys did get proof, why would it be with her? While the two of them are closer now, it"s not like they are friends or anything. Then wait, realization struck Lyn like lightning. If the two of them aren"t friends, then what are they?
Lyn didn"t think too deeply about it before since she"s been too focused on the events lately - the ones mainly to do with Kazuya. But if she and Rhys aren"t friends with each other, then what does she call this odd relations.h.i.+p of there"s? Rhys claims to have feelings for her, but there are times where she got this impression that he hated her. Did he simply hate her because she was a Princess?
"Rhys must hide a lot of things from her because she is n.o.bility," it"s only reasonable. While she is the odd one amongst her siblings, and they know her circ.u.mstances.
It does not change the fact that she has n.o.ble blood. Lyn could think of more reasons, but right now these are the only ones she"s willing to voice out. If he dislikes her though, he wouldn"t be sacrificing his time to train her, and there"s that lipstick too. It"s vital to him, and yet he gave it to her.
Her thoughts broke off when she saw that Rhys had turned to leave, "Going?"
"Yeah, the others are waiting for me. You should return to the inn; Princess shouldn"t look like this. Hurry up before somebody sees you, and," he pointed to the pills, "Drink those already."
"So, in the end, I have to drink them," a long sigh pa.s.sed her lips, as she reached out for the tablets. But it was challenging for her to get them, her whole body was aching all over, and each time she moved, it felt like waves of electric lingered on her body. Before she could even reach out for the box, Rhys picked it up. He sighed and opened the container before he poured a handful of tablets into his palm. He placed them inside his mouth and crouched down.
"Wh—what?!!"
"What does this look like to you? I will feed you," and then he does it. Like that time he gave her water, he feeds her the tablets in the same way. Their tongues inter winded with each other"s, and Lyn felt her cheeks grow increasingly hot. She will stab him after this, or hit him - she will do something. Lyn tried to resist him, but whenever she did, Rhys would grab hold of her shoulders and squeeze it slightly, indicating that he was impatient. So she gave in, and Lyn felt herself swallow the tablets.
After a few minutes, Rhys pulled away, salivcoated his lips, and she looked down at the cold ground of the harbor. Rhys whipped his mouth with his sleeve, "You got some, right?"
"Ah-huh," she nodded. "But it tastes bad," Lyn admitted. It felt like eating cold food that is frozen all over.
"That means it worked, hurry up and go back already."
Both of them rose up from the floor.
"Hey, Rhys I...thank you."
"Just don"t do this again," he sighed, "You aren"t ready to use those powers in a proper battle yet."
"I know."
"Let"s go, I"ll drop you back, and," he turned to the scythe the in his pocket, "I"ll teach you about this too."
....
Her body still felt sluggish and weak. But Lyn didn"t want to trouble Rhys to send a carriage for her, so she simply bared with it. The walk back was awfully silent for a while, and Lyn understood it was mainly because of her. "He kissed her again, and his tongue," no matter how much she tried to erase the thought out of her mind, it kept happening.
Perhaps she was making it too obvious, with how she was acting — moving away whenever their shoulders brushed against each other and jumping whenever he called her name.
"Can you stop freaking out whenever I do that to you? You make it seem like being kissed by me is the plague or something," Rhys said, frustrated.
Lyn blushed, "I"m sorry, but," but, he shouldn"t be kissing her in the first place.
Rhys reached over and ruffled her hair, "I get it, so quit acting nervous, yeah? As I said, I don"t expect an answer from you," he trailed off, "At least not now."
"Not now," she repeated. That"s exactly what she"s worried about. Lyn shook her head, "Weren"t you going to teach me about the weapon? Why does Kazuya want me to wield it so badly?" Lyn noticed when she held it, that there was something different about this weapon. When she held it in her hands, it felt like it had a mind of its own.
"You see, this weapon is called the Rose Scythe," Rhys said.
Lyn immediately recognized the name, "The Rose Scythe, like the one in legends?"
Rhys raised his eyebrows, "The General made you study weapons too?"
"No," Lyn shook her head, "I just learned about it when he mixed up his books with mine," she trailed off, "That"s the good thing about having him as a teacher, at times he"s absent-minded," leading to the books being mixed up.
Sometimes she would get a chance to read a book for days, or months before he realized it was missing. Whenever he does realize it"s gone and checks her study. She would casually put it somewhere and make it look like it has been untouched the whole time. Lyn wondered if the General ever realized though.
"Well, if you know the legend, it saves me a lot of explanation," Rhys nodded to himself and took out the rod from his sash, "You see this weapon, it"s meant to harm those with unknown powers."
"Unknown?"
"Yeah, people like us who use dark magic are still rare in the Empire. People know little about it, and usually, they"d lock away those they deemed as a hazard. So, it"s not like they even get a chance to research."