The Enemy of My Friend

The last time Rhys saw Damien Creedstone, he had been a tall smooth faced skinny broad shouldered teenager with mousy brown hair and piercing blue eyes.

 Senator Creedstone was a tall broad shouldered muscled man with a well kept beard, shiny brown hair and tired blue eyes. His face which was once skinny and angular had filled out, it was now chiselled and symmetrical. Once he wore all his emotions on his face, the cocky arrogance that grated Emrhys to no end and seemed to amuse Constance. Now his face was hard, stripped bare of any emotion. He looked so cold and aloof, hard. The boy had grown into a man. 

As he raised his eyes to meet Damien, Rhys wondered if the boy had always towered over him. Maybe he had spent so long looking down Damien, he could not see when he had overtaken him. Maybe it was this arrogance that cost him Constance.

"Senator Emrhys." Damien stretched his hand out to shake him but Rhys placed his hand over his chest, the common elvian greeting. It was not that he could not shake hands, he had done it before but he could not shake this man.

Damien's hand hovered between them. He refused to take it back. He was still a stubborn little shit. Good.

Beside him, Rhys felt Jade move her weight from one leg to another as she tried to decide how to react to this standoff, but it was Franz Harrow who intervened.

"Greetings, Emrhys." She approached him from where she had been sitting facing the Senate President. "It has been a while since the Centurion city has been graced with your presence."

Franz did not wait for his approval and went straight in for a hug, "I only wish it was under better circumstances." Behind him, he sae Damien finally relent and withdraw his outstretched hand.

Rhys hugged her back briefly, the Fae senator had once been a close ally, "I had to say goodbye to Remus" he pulled back to look at Franz, "He deserved it."

Harrow gave him a sad smile in return. "He would have been happy to know you came."

Rhys looked around at the room, all of them dressed in black hooded mourning attire, he wondered if he could have saved Remus if he came back earlier.

"Come sit." Damien spoke; his voice was rough and hard. Rhys remembered that he had taken a severe blow to the throat during the battle of the favourites that forever altered the sound of his voice, but he also knew that the hardness in his voice did not come from that alone.

The three senators sat as Callan and Jade excused them. The high chambers was just as Rhys expected, long high windows, minimalistic decoration and lots of black, white and wood. He and Harrow sat together facing Damien who sat in his executive chair which was no less than a throne, magnificently crafted by the centaurs themselves. 

"I trust the trip from Eden was pleasant enough." Damien asked though, but his tone said he didn't care either way.

"It was adequate." Rhys replied.

Damien nodded and went straight to business, "The other senators are already arriving. The funeral procession will begin by the sixth hour and last till the eighteenth hour. Many wish to pay their respects to Remus."

"He was a good man." Franz interjected, "That is to be expected."

Damien did not respond to that, "We have prepared villas for all of you with the best security. The clave is taking the attack on a serving ambassador as a serious threat."

"Is it now?" Emrhys asked softly mostly to himself. Damien turned sharply to look at him and for the first time, Rhys saw something more than coldness in his eyes.

"We all need to focus on what's important." Franz reached out and placed a hand on Rhys' hand, "Honouring Remus' life and dreams."

Neither he nor Damien responded to that, how could they? It was true, all of this was for Remus. After all since the war ended ten years ago, Rhys had retreated home to rebuild his state and nurse his wounds... and shame.

"My secretary wanted me to ask you." Damien spoke surprisingly addressing Rhys, "would you like to say a word at the wake keep today?"

"No." Rhys said finally.

"No?" Damien echoed.

"I said all I wanted to say to Remus during his lifetime." 

Damien replied coldly, "From what I understand, the last time you and Remus spoke to each other was a decade ago. He wrote you severally but you didn't reply."

Rhys tried to press down the anger rising in him, "Do not presume to understand my friendship with Remus."

Damien scoffed at that, "I wouldn't presume to call you and Remus friends. At least not by my standard, I would never abandon a friend."

"I did not abandon my friend." Emrhys was sitting at the edge of his seat now, seething with barely restrained anger, "He abandoned me."

"Because he chose to do the right thing? Because he chose to stand with me?"

Franz tried to step in, "Damien..."

"Tell me Emrhys, what is friendship to you if not standing by those you call friend in all situation, no matter the cost."

Rhys got up abruptly, "This conversation is over. I will see you at the keep"

"Rhys, stay please." Franz reached out to hold his hand, but Emrhys drew back.

"Let him Franz." Damien said dismissively, "After all, that is what Emrhys does best, run."

Emrhys halted in his path and swung around to face Damien, "You child." The wrath in his voice quickly wiped the mocking ghost of a smirk from Damien's face, even Franz seemed taken aback by the venom in his voice, "I stood those I called friends through the hells and high waters, I never wavered. You fight a war for barely three years and you think you know sacrifice? I fought five hundred years, more lifetimes than you could ever live, than you could ever imagine. For my friends. Do you know what I gave in the name of friendship? What I did? What I lost?"

Rhys turned away shaking now, and forced himself to taper his emotions.

"You say you know what I do best? The truth is boy, you don't know me at all." Without waiting for a response, he turned and left the room.