resurrect the saint within the wretch
Here he is, amongst darkness and snow and ice, making matters worse for the poor, frightened girl before him. Warden curves his neck, the gentle slope of his horns now standing upwards prominently from his crown as his eyes fall away from her, settling on the darkness beyond. His skin shivers, a gentle tremble of mahogany and white, allowing the swiftness of her voice to fall across him in waves, becoming more intense with every word passing through her lips.
Maybe it is because he enjoys the lashing, but the horned pegasus remains still and quiet. He never turns his navy eyes to meet her gaze, though, but he is listening actively.
The fear in her voice is raw and painful, full of emotion and vibrating with something like anger - but not really, more like concern for insinuating that being afraid is something to accept. But she does not know what he’s seen and what he’s watched come apart at the seams, and the inability to do nothing as it unfolds. It gives him a sort of apathy towards the way of the world - for though he wishes for it to be righted, no amount of shouting at the stars or running from the future will change it. He should know, he’s tried for his entire life.
“It’s not,” he replies with finality, finding the strength to let his gaze wander back to her, his pale face strewn with the shadows from the branches in the canopy above them. “None of it’s okay and there will never be peace.” He inhales sharply, nearly inclined to glance upwards at the stars that peek through the bare branches with a discerning scowl, but he refrains.
Instead, Warden’s brow furrows, to meet her gaze carefully. He cannot quite see the tears that have begun to stain her cheeks, but he could hear it in her voice how they threatened to choke her. The Watcher watches her sympathetically, wishing he could offer her more than what he is giving her. He is nothing but a harbinger of death and destruction; an angel of death standing before her masqueraded with perfect white wings and a warrior’s prideful stance. “Which is why the fear is okay - if you were not afraid of this world and all its horrors, I would be more worried for you than I am now.”
A pause, a consideration that finds him as he tilts his head slightly.
“Beings such as us cannot change the terrible atrocities we have witnessed and experienced. It would be far easier to lie down and allow the ice to stop our hearts.” Warden snorts softly, knowing it is quite possible that none of his words will dry her tears and may easily cause more to flow. “I do not wish to leave you in the snow, though.” He finds it odd that he wishes for her to stand, to do something, when all his life he has been where she is - curled into the snow, with no fight left, reality raining down unceasingly. “I can take you somewhere warm; that will solve at least something tonight.”
@[Astra Daggenhardt]