03-01-2022, 04:46 PM
I'll settle for the ghost of you.
If she had confided in him about the imposter syndrome that she could not shake, he might have been able to put her more at ease for he had been living with the same thing his entire life. It went deeper than coveting a land, deeper than even those awful words that had followed him like a kicked puppy the moment he had slipped free from the womb. It was a part of him woven into the fabric of his soul by flames, misted amongst the connection he made with each lost soul, engraved in every bone, tied in ribbons around each and every tendon and vein. This sense of belonging and not belonging, this sense of knowing something about him was different even if he couldn’t fully understand what that difference truly was.It had something to do with being terrible, something to do with Terror’s obsession with him, that small dark voice that liked to whisper suggestively to his insecurities and fear, the other thing he called himself. It had something to do with Firion, Aela, and his birth mother. It had nothing to do with them at all.
Such a complex thing, feeling so certain in your own skin while feeling painfully uncomfortable in it as well.
His wild feral gaze never leaves her, following her steady movement through the water and up the bank to come back beside him. “No promises.” He says impishly, a smirk tugging at the corner of his pale mouth as the flames continue to play against the yellow of his eyes. Her head turns to look thoughtfully over the moon spilled canyon but he doesn’t follow her lead, instead choosing to watch her and finds he is content to do so. She is close enough not to be singed by his flames, close enough that he can smell the mixture of her damp fur and that clean feminine scent.
The fire along his shoulders spasms with intensity and he is almost relieved when she begins to speak… Until the words come out. His flames dim in response, fading beneath his jaguar spotted skin until small ribbons of smoke curls off his back and the only orange flickering comes from the three little balls that rotate steadily around them. It is his turn to look out over the silver ripples coming from the river, as his lips press together and frown. “I know.” He finally says in a soft voice because he does. He misses them all too.
The weight of her vulnerability seems to coax out his own and he feels the throb of that headache starting its steady beating against his skull again, the ache in his chest that threatens to break him apart if he has that same terrible thought about Aela. “You haven’t told me about your family. What are they like?” He finally asks her, careful with the choice of words he uses as he finally turns his attention back to her. Looking for signs of what she might be feeling and how he might help... Even as that shadowy voice reminds him that his kindness is a shallow excuse for what truly lurked in his own temperamental soul.
FYR
@Lillibet