Sunspire Mountains he threw me on the needle bed, across my dress he laid

thank u for the kudos <3

Riley had only met one kind of warrior, so he was reserved in believing Orlaith that they came in all stripes.

Did it matter? They hurt people; didn't matter if it was a little, it didn't matter if it was a lot. It was all the same.

Didn't matter whose name they did it in, didn't matter if they believed they were right. Riley cast his gaze out into the dour mix of grey skies and misty rain. He intelligently kept his first response to himself, a surprising move, but he did not let Orlatih miss out on his misgivings either.

"You don't know the Saints." Riley reiterated, this time feeling a brush of annoyance for the fiery woman's insistence they were all terrible.

He had already tried -- and failed -- to grasp this thread. To push through that they were not all evil, and that not all of them (least of all him!) could be defined by their leader's actions.

Finally, circumstance might have thrown him the rope he was so desperately looking for. There was a long interval before Riley spoke, fixing the spitfire with a level gaze. "You are not defined by that woman you called a queen. There were things she did, that you did not agree with. So you are here now." Riley's observations were delivered dryly, despite how tired he was of hearing about how shitty the Saints were. "You could say you are separate from her and how she behaves or acts. She is not a reflection on you." Would it work this time? Had he finally grasped enough of a mastery over talking that he was able to convey his thoughts to the firebird? Really, only time would tell -- but Riley searched her earnestly for a response. "You do not know the Saints. You never bothered to know me. There are dozens of us, but you only judged us by one wolf. How is that fair?"