She doesn’t reject him when he touches her, doesn’t push him away or recoil in shocked horror as she has last time they met. He takes hope in that, a small smile returning to the corners of his dark lips. It isn’t until heartbeats later that she draws back, unsteady words exhaled from an uncertain throat.
She doesn’t wait for his approval, but neither does he retreat from the shadows that begin to coil around his feet. For a moment, he can do little more than hold his breath as they crawl across his skin and blanket him in an endless pitch. He can’t know that his eyes have gone yellow in the embrace of her shadows, but still there is an undeniable kindness behind them, humor curling the edges, as irrepressible as he is.
When finally the shadows have settled, he offers her a crooked grin, head tilting as he eyes her with banked laughter. “Is that better?” he asks lightly, voice crackling with the edges of amusement he tried so hard to hide. If this is what it takes to make her comfortable around him, he would gladly allow it. Not that he would have much of a choice if she pressed the issue, but Cassian brushes that aside as easily as he would a dry autumn leaf. He has spent his entire life surrounded by horses vastly more powerful than he. In that respect, she is no different than even his own twin.
She doesn’t say anything in the wake of her shadows embracing him. He wonders for a moment if she can feel them in the same way he can feel the soft and almost imperceptible brush of them against nearly every inch of his skin (though he’s not quite foolish enough to ask).
He’s not quite certain how he recognizes this for the olive branch it is, but he does. Perhaps it’s the way she seems to close her eyes and surrender, at least momentarily. Or perhaps it’s merely an overactive imagination. Whatever the case may be, he closes the distance between them once more. His lips find her jaw again - the one whose lines have now all but disappeared - as a smile grows. And when he speaks, his words are soft, escaping on a warm and wispy breath. “Do you believe me now?”
@[Beryl]