Gemini wore a look a wariness, although the people that he had thought were his friends had not noticed, it was clear that he was in a state of fear.
For a split second as he watched the fire... He remembered the cell that him and the three of his cellmates had shared for so long, he remembered feeling as if his life had already ended...
He had given up...
And yet he was here... Boiling with an uncontrollable rage that had begun to build up within his system.
He had tried to calm it, tried to remember sitting alongside Ivy and Rayan within that cell, trying to recall how they had not given up no matter what, how they had blindly placed their trust in someone neither of them had ever even had a real conversation with...
It was horror... To think that someone could place their trust in something so unpredictable.
Although the others may not have noticed yet... There was something horrible hiding inside of that person... Something that no so called leader should ever bare when directing a group as powerful as Unity...
He was hiding things... Too many things... Things that would instantly break apart the group if they had gotten out... And yet he acted as if nothing was wrong, as if this was a normal Tuesday morning stroll for the lot of them.
Then... Fear began to rise from Gemini's heart all the way up to his eyes as he realized that he had been enchanted by the flames.
The longer he stared... The more his vision had begun to make out images... Terrible images that would break apart the human mind if he called to them for too long, and yet he watched.
Until it happened... Causing his muscles to tense and his spine to freeze as if Michael of House Everfrost had placed his chilling hand upon his back.
A pair of demonic green eyes staring right back at him...
Then all went black, removing his perception entirely as if he had downed an entire bottle of the hardest ale known to mankind...
...
Chase had finally maintained a healthy enough body to stand up, now leaning against one of the pillars farthest from the light.
Until he began to hear footsteps quietly growing louder.
"Yo! Chase, I found the sword I had given you..." Reinhart said cheerfully, reaching out and flipping the blade into the palm of his hand, somehow without leaving any scratches on his large hands.
Chase willingly took the handle and smiled awkwardly.
"Sorry, I tend to lose my weapons in rough fights..."
Reinhart shrugged. "Happens to the best of us, although I do not think that weapon suits you. You may be good with a sword but your fighting style has grown more offensive than defensive in the recent months..."
Chase shook his head. "What do you reckon then?" He asked honestly, unsure at what Reinhart was hinting at.
However, the once royal chuckled himself. "I'm surprised you don't get what I'm saying..."
Then the vanguard unsheathed his giant steel sword, glowing with royal ruins that Leander himself had placed upon the blade.
He inspected his most prized possession, gazing down at Chase who stood far shorter than him in height and status.
"You need something bigger... Deadlier even... I think a Greatsword or some sort of colossal weapon would suit you well. After all, you have the durability of a tank and the damage of a Paladin... And maybe even speed on par with Poppy of House Aries herself..." He smirked, placing his sword gently back into its sheathe.
Chase; however, almost could not comprehend what Reinhart had said, looking down at his frail injured body with reflection.
Although he had gotten far stronger, and gained a significant amount of muscle, he was still quite lean and found himself relying more on speed than damage or his durability trait...
"I don't think I could efficiently wield something that heavy..." He sighed.
Reinhart simply shrugged, leaning against the pillar alongside Chase as they stared at the shadows that always danced around the edge of the room.
"Are you awaiting something?" He asked his true king, fiddling with the handle of his mighty weapon at his hip.
"Not necessarily... I just find it soothing to watch the shadows dance... Something about it enchants my mind, almost like meditation. It used to be flames that I found fascinating when I was younger... But now all I see when I look into a flame is the look that my father had worn when he was slain... And I heard that his body still remains in that place... So I'm honestly unsure how to think when I see the flames that he himself has passed onto me..."
Reinhart almost seemed uncomfortable for a moment, before giving Chase another shrug and a smile.
"Perhaps it is best that you have stopped using the Phoenix flame then... You have gotten quite good at using other aspects within a fight anyway, I had heard from Kaylynn that your Primis core was under-developed and could not bare the weight of using such a powerful lineage- Not that that is a bad thing of course! It is quite common for children to be incompatible with one of their parent's lineages... May I ask what your mother's affinity was?" He asked, as if asking what Chase's favorite supper was.
Chase almost answered, before hesitating, unsure himself what her true affinity had actually was...
"I believe it has something to do with death..." He answered after some seconds of silence...
Reinhart chuckled. "Fitting... That does seem like something that you would be able to control in the near in the future... After all I had heard that you had once brought someone back from the brink of death with your flames..."
Chase shook his head... Dread hidden behind his emerald gaze.
"No... I played no part in that... And I believe it was a much darker concept of the word "Death" so I don't want to get my hopes up..." He answered sadly, before remembering something that he had been meaning to ask the royal for quite a while.
"Reinhart...?"
"Sup?" He responded with a carefree tone.
Chase had feared asking this question, wondering if the god who shall not be named had played a part in this memory, but shut his eyes and steeled himself anyway.
"Have I met you before?" He asked, and watched as Reinhart's jolly mood shifted in a near instant, and a much darker and dreadful meaning slipped into his eyes.
"No." He said without hesitation, as if he had known that Chase would ask such a question, and then he turned his back, beginning to walk back to the fire.
Chase almost spoke out, demanding that Reinhart reveal what he was hiding; however, the vanguard donned in steel armor did not dare look into the eyes of Chase again that night...