Choosing to say out of the Alliance, the Cinders are isolated in their own conflicts, and when Helia Cinder reaches to the void for answers, she inadvertently draws a creature out. Expecting to be eaten alive, she is instead left with a man with no...
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"Hey, Wren." Adagio gave him a wave as he dropped the omelet on a plate in front of Cadence. "My dad said you were uneasy around him, and I'm closer to Cadence's age, so we swapped for a bit. Hope you don't mind."
"No, of course not. Lieder is welcome here as well. I just do not know what to say to him." Wren paused as Talamayas stood up and grabbed a plate from the fridge. It was cut mango from the day prior, and Wren thanked him as he set it down for him to eat. "You seem... okay with being near Talamayas." Wren worded it as gently as possible with Cadence in hearing range. The last thing he needed was to frighten the innocent boy before he ate breakfast.
"Forgiveness is a big part of finding peace in the void," Adagio answered simply, sitting next to Cadence across from him and Tala with a light smile. "My death wasn't violent or traumatic, so it wasn't difficult to put it behind me. It's more challenging with the ones Talamayas..." Adagio glanced at Cadence and then back to Wren. "Spent time with." Adagio cringed as Wren did.
Cadence sputtered his food back on the plate as he got to the center of his omelet, and Adagio laughed as the younger boy wiped his tongue with a paper towel. "Why did you put red root spice on this?"
"The Songs put it on everything," Adagio said as if it would have been weird if he hadn't. Wren knew the root, and his tongue watered uncomfortably just thinking about it. It was spicy, beyond what normal people would be comfortable with, but it was a medicinal herb that stimulated magic flow and eased muscles. Good for maintaining an active body for assassins and killers.
"It's gross," Cadence growled but continued to eat his food anyway. "Riff pours it on everything too. And here I thought I'd get a break." The saddened groan had a smile easing on Wren's lips despite the situation they were in.
"Nope. I'm just as bad." Adagio formed a heart with his hands, and Cadence flicked egg at his face with a fork. With the same ease of wiping the egg off his face, Adagio shoved the spoon from cooking eggs right into Cadence mouth. Poor cadence fell into a coughing fit, and he drank water to get the spice out of his mouth.
Wren's mind wandered to the name Cadence had uttered. Riff Song. Wren ran his hand through his hair with a despairing sigh. Back before Wren had run into Tala and his mother, Riff and he had been thick as thieves, closer than brothers though not of direct lineage. They had hunted together, slaughtered vampire kind side by side, and drank to the future of the Songs with a merriment that was disturbing now that he thought back on it. They'd kept score of who'd killed the most, made bets on which of them would fell more each time they went out, and they'd laughed about which had gone down hardest or easiest.
They'd made sport of ending lives that he now cherished.
If Riff was still alive, then there was little chance of this ending peacefully. Among the infiltrator class Song's, Riff had been the strongest, second only to Wren who led their people. Somehow the Song next in line to lead after Wren's death or imprisonment had escaped Talamayas slaughter, along with whoever Cadence's father was and however many more. There was no way of telling how many Songs there were fifty years later.
