There are secrets lost away in his chest that he does not touch; that he does not even approach. They lay dormant there, locked away from even him on most days. It was to painful to look at them, to dredge them up and dissect them. It was too painful to think of the blood and the loss—to remember it all. So he doesn’t with her now, instead enjoying the ease of her company and the friend he was creating in her.
“To be young again?” he responds, musing on the question. What would it be like to be young again? To feel that fire in his veins? To race along the jungle, or the Chamber, or the Gates? To love so fiercely and without reservation? He smiled at the thought, his scarred heart responding to the idea as it thumped in his chest. “It would be magnificent,” his lacerated mouth lifted into a smile. “I hope to feel that again.”
He laughs lightly at her admission. “I hope you never lose it, Lucrezia. The world is a brighter place for having you, and your love for adventure, in it.” He dips his head slightly. “As for my heart—it is still very much a wild thing.” Too wild, too often. Too responsive and crazed and feral; too bloodthirsty. So much of his life had been spent living out its commands and apologizing on its behalf.
But he would not have it any other way.
After a moment in thought, he directs the conversation back to slightly more practical things, his eyes glinting. “You know, Lucrezia, we are in need of someone to step up as Head of Peace.” He regards her, evaluating her response to the query—testing the idea out. “If only there was someone capable.”
out of the blue out into the loneliest place that you'll ever know
I carried the world just as far as I could but the damage had taken its toll
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