She isn’t sure at first what it is that floods through her when she recognizes the voice that interrupts her thoughts, but she quickly realizes it is relief.
It was easier to pretend to be herself when it is familiar eyes staring back at her, even if Atrox was one of the least forgiving souls that she knew. She did not expect his sympathy, or even a forced cordiality, and even though sometimes she thinks her tired and trembling heart craves even a shred of kindness she knows she would reject it even if it came to her. “Atrox,” she says with a note of surprise, if only because she had expected him to disappear back into Tephra after their interesting ordeal. Her darkened gaze slips past his face and to the undead souls that flank him, curiosity flickering briefly when she ventures hesitantly, “I like your….friends.” She can only assume that they were his...gift? Punishment? She doesn’t dwell on it, because she isn’t sure what hers is, either.
She regards them for a moment longer before deciding she finds them unsettling, and her eyes flick back to his yellow ones. For a moment she forgets that she is different; that a halo glimmers above her head and that soft, ethereal glow radiates from all around her now. She almost forgets the weight of the gilded-tipped wings that had ripped ruthlessly through her shoulders, because she is shaking her head and laughing ruefully at him. “I’m pretty sure you can defend yourself, and if you’re relying on me as a line of defense, well…” She lets her voice trail off with a knowing tilt of her head.
He sends his guards away, and when his attention refocuses on her she can feel herself grow tense again. The weight feels like it’s back on her shoulders, settling into all the corners of her heart like an anchor. “If you don’t care then why did you ask?” She retorts lightly, a small smile accompanying the words though the motion doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “You’re one of the few that can manage to insult me and compliment me all in the same breath,” it is said mostly in a light-hearted manner, but her eyes drift back to her reflection and her jaw clenches.
“I was thinking about Dhumin. And how going to the afterlife was a mistake.” Something inside her chest flinches when she realizes he had likely gone there for Twinge, and she wasn’t here, either. She looks back to him, her shoulders rolling as she says quietly in her attempt at nonchalance, “Lesson learned, I suppose.”
