resurrect the saint within the wretch
He recgonizes that anger as her ears fall into the depths of her curling mane and he wonders what kind of way her eyes will burn into him when she finally turns to meet his face. He is patient, stoic and nearly frozen before her, his two-toned neck stretched somewhat towards her as if meaning to comfort her with his touch, but failing to find the strength to bring himself those few steps closer. There is a myriad of emotions in her eyes when she raises her head to him and Warden finds his own face meeting hers with a nearly indifferent expression - a look that comes from years of disappointment; years of wanting the future to change and watching it crumble (just the way he had seen it) into oblivion. It is a face of lost cause, of dwindling hope, that had once believed in happy endings (and still does) but finds no foothold to make any of it come true. Warden is hardened by each vision, his heart and emotions further entrapped in thorns each time he returns, and it nearly captivates him to see all of the emotions that flash in her once gentle eyes.
The Watcher turns his face slightly away from her to then to stare into the darkness of the forest around them, where it is still and quiet and the world is sleeping.
“I would,” he murmurs in a huff, turning a single white ear towards her. “but I do not wield that sort of power.” He has been given a curse, not a gift, and he wonders if she’s forgotten this or if, even in the midst of very real death, she still clings to the hope that has long since turned into cooling embers in the pit of Warden’s stomach. But where one fire dies, one arises. Where one is on the brink of extinguishing, another is raging wildly.
Her question makes him snort sharply, jerkingly turning his head further from her with a sweep of his neck. The obsidian of his horns catch the faint blue light of Leonidas, sparkling brilliantly in the star’s rays. His ears are hidden beneath the tousled black of his mane, his jaw clenched tight. He doesn’t know how to share it with her, how to explain that he is always angry, that it flows from him like the lava from Tephra’s volcano. There is a desolation that resides in his chest and it burns like acid, a heavy weight that is quietly crushing from the inside out. “What kind of question is that?” He finally says bitterly, refusing to meet her gaze. “Of course I’m angry. It’s stolen everything from me and then makes me watch it steal from everyone else, too. I’m powerless.”
Warden’s voice begins bristly and angry, but wanes and fades into such sadness, he cannot help but look up to Leonidas with sad, confused eyes. He sighs bitterly before closing his eyes, lowering his head, and shaking it gently. How did it always come back to him? (Because the cycle never ends.)
He almost wishes he’d have a vision now - to show her, to remind her - just what it is that plagues him so. Every time he is reminded of just how small he is, how incapable he is of protecting those around him, and how useless he is.
When his head turns towards her again, it is almost with curiosity that his eyes meet hers. “Why are you asking me this? Why talk about hope when there is none?”
@[Lilliana]
