make your fathers proud, thorn

[thorn]

"Oh," Thorn says, settling a startled lilac gaze on his daugther. "Oh . . ." he follows up in a whisper. He can feel his heart begin to race. Blood pounds loudly in his ears. His breath hitches. Oh, he says, but not really, as the noise falls on empty lungs. Instead, his mouth is cracked open just the slightest.

He does not breath.

She looks nervous, the little girl, and it tears the cursed man in two. One half of him wilts beneath the weight of a daughter he is not there for, and one half boils and runs over with fear. Away, he thinks. Away. Only broken sentences make it through his mind. Daughter, he thinks. Daughter.

"Prayer," he says, the name stretching on a long whisper. Thorn's eyes don't stray from Basilica. "She's beautiful." It's hard to say that. Two simple and true words that fight tooth and nail to find a way out of his mouth.

"But why did you come here?"

Those words do not battle to find purchase, and now the sabino looks up at Prayer with bitter, betrayed eyes.

"She shouldn't see this."

A snap. He can't control himself. Everything spins, in the tragic and evil way it has been since he met Clegane - Thorn is too disorientated to pick apart his anger.

He only knows it feels better when he's alone.

@[prayer]