07-17-2022, 09:11 PM
Malik had been taught (and remembered) the value of empathy later in life, but tends to forget what he’s learned at personal convenience. Despite his mother’s best efforts, there remains the Curse-taught arrogance, the way that Malik views himself and his closest relations as inherently superior to all others. Aware of this flaw in himself, Malik rarely engages with others outside Hyaline. That’s no longer possible now, of course, and so he searches for his family.
Is this your home, she asks, and he glances to the woods on either side of the water they stand beside. It’s an unremarkable place, as different from the soaring peaks of Hyaline as a place might be. “It might as well be.”
‘There have been some strange things happening’, he had told her, and how minimizing that had been of current events. The whole world is different, is gone. “My home was Hyaline, but it was recently destroyed.” It doesn’t feel real yet, not even as he says it, but the cool detachment on his expression falters as the woman continues to speak, telling him of a lengthy and unsuccessful search for a brother.
The opportunity to leave has not yet passed, he reminds himself, he can still turn and go and leave her to search for her brother. There’s no need to answer her question. But he does anyway, and later perhaps he will wonder why.
“My sister, Sickle. I’d heard she would sometimes come to the Forest.” Malik’s not sure why he tells her - Famkee - this. Perhaps because she is a stranger, someone he thinks he might never see again after they part. But then she finally offers her name, and is all of a sudden slightly more than a stranger.
A curious glow appears in her eyes, and Malik watches as it winds its way up the length of her serrated horn. He’s not seen anything quite like it before, even in this world of wonders, there is a softness to his expression that lasts as long as the light. And then it’s gone, replaced by something more humorous as the thought occurs to him a moment before he speaks.
“At least all this destruction means that we’ve got fewer places to search.”
@Famkee
Is this your home, she asks, and he glances to the woods on either side of the water they stand beside. It’s an unremarkable place, as different from the soaring peaks of Hyaline as a place might be. “It might as well be.”
‘There have been some strange things happening’, he had told her, and how minimizing that had been of current events. The whole world is different, is gone. “My home was Hyaline, but it was recently destroyed.” It doesn’t feel real yet, not even as he says it, but the cool detachment on his expression falters as the woman continues to speak, telling him of a lengthy and unsuccessful search for a brother.
The opportunity to leave has not yet passed, he reminds himself, he can still turn and go and leave her to search for her brother. There’s no need to answer her question. But he does anyway, and later perhaps he will wonder why.
“My sister, Sickle. I’d heard she would sometimes come to the Forest.” Malik’s not sure why he tells her - Famkee - this. Perhaps because she is a stranger, someone he thinks he might never see again after they part. But then she finally offers her name, and is all of a sudden slightly more than a stranger.
A curious glow appears in her eyes, and Malik watches as it winds its way up the length of her serrated horn. He’s not seen anything quite like it before, even in this world of wonders, there is a softness to his expression that lasts as long as the light. And then it’s gone, replaced by something more humorous as the thought occurs to him a moment before he speaks.
“At least all this destruction means that we’ve got fewer places to search.”
@Famkee