She saw the change in his expression as clear as night became day. In one moment he had been distant and vague, drifting in his thoughts, lost in the bowels of time. But her gasp had called him back in the worst of ways. It was clear in the way his face changed that the small sound that had fallen unbidden from her mouth hurt more than the weeping scars across his eye and along his neck. She felt her heart crumble to dust within the confines of her aching chest. It hadn’t been the ugliness of his wounds or the gaping crater where she guessed an eye used to sit. It was the fact that he hadn’t come from the fray, hadn’t worn a single piece of ash on that familiar red skin. She hadn’t expected the wounds, hadn’t expected the defeat echoing in his face or the exhaustion that hung like flesh from his bones.
And before she had time to consider herself, to realize that her closeness may be unwelcome in the wake of these violent injuries, she is pushing carefully past Kronk to press her nose gently to the curve of Ledgers jaw. “No.” She tells him and those pale brown eyes darken unwaveringly beneath the furrow of her brow. Her voice softens to a whisper so that Kronk won’t hear – and somehow this feels important. “I hadn’t realized you were hurt. I’ve never seen this before. Any of this.” She means his injuries, the hungry ghost in his eyes, the wreckage of a peaceful kingdom. Blood.
Her eyes close for a moment as her lips ghost gently across an unexposed part of his now ashy neck. “I’m sorry I’m no good at any of this.”
ILKA
makai x oksana