I can get there on my own. you can leave me here alone.
She moves so quickly that, if not for the blanket of stars, he might not have seen her at all.
She spins around to face him, armed with an apology he does not expect, and he grits his teeth.
Were he anyone else he might have smiled at her, reached out to touch her shoulder, offered her some semblance of comfort. He might have told her it was all right, she need not apologize. But he is not built for this specific kind of tenderness, so he merely shakes his head in response to her apology.
She stills just long enough to eye him warily and he goes on steadily looking back at her, the brow faintly furrowed. There is not much that surprises him anymore. In all of his traveling, he has encountered almost every kind of soul there is – tortured, cruel, shattered. But there is something peculiar in her panic. He wonders if she’s unhinged.
He glances over his shoulder into the absolute darkness at his back. He thinks he should leave her be, but there is another something that plagues him, something in her voice that suggests she’s not crazy at all. Strange, perhaps, but not crazy.
So, he reacts to her question with a nod. He drags his focus back to her face, only able to make out the shape of it thanks to the glow of her skin. “Yes,” he says and then turns back the way he came, “follow me.”
He knows this forest better than any other swath of land in Beqanna. Save for, perhaps, the earth at the edge of the river where he has spent years of his time ruminating on all of the things he’s lost and never had. He leads her to a clearing – a small meadow only a fraction of the size of the larger, neighboring meadow – and pauses to turn his face up to the sky.
“There they are,” he murmurs and there is a twinge of amusement in his tone. “I can’t say for sure, but I suspect they’re there even when you can’t see them.”
BETHLEHEM
I'm just tryin' to do what's right. oh, a man ain't a man unless he's fought the fight.
@[Vela]