if i never saw you again

His words were strangely earnest, even if they disturbed her. Theory allowed them to wash over her and tried not to internalize them. She had thought her brother was somehow... "evil." He had been reduced to a villain of myth in her memories, and yet here he stood: just a man. No more, no less. The thought was almost comforting. "I am truly sorry that you feel that way," she said softly, her words measured and careful. "Not 'sorry' as in 'I pity you,' but sorry that you spent so much time waiting for your life to begin. It was always yours." In her heart, she believed Rhyme would have bade him a pleasant but stiff farewell upon his majority. The only reason he had been made to stay in Abaven under careful watch was because he had been a child. A child. We were children. "I'm glad we crossed paths," she said, still keeping her gaze trained on the horizon. "If only to say these few words." She didn't expect anything more from him, but it felt good to finally put the memory of him as some caricature of evil to bed.