let my shadows prove the sunshine
The throb of his wound lessens and perhaps it is the shock of everything that still makes him bleary-eyed, but he at first assumes that merely her touch was enough to put him at ease. His own eyes close, his brow creasing slightly, as if pondering something (praying?). It does not even occur to him that tendrils of magic have wrapped their lovely hands around him, trickling into the fissures of his skin by way of her perfect lips. Magic can be terrible, he knows, and he wonders if he will always shy away from its power. Yet, in the same breath, he does not shy away from her.
When she settles against him the quiet flutter of his eyes opening accompanies it. He likes to think he appears whole as she glows radiantly beside him and even though it wasn’t true, the thought of it makes a lazy smile twitch onto his pale mouth. They are two strangers only bound together by name and chance, but from their current positions, it would not seem so. Something deeper must draw them closer, any passerby would assume, and perhaps they would be right. Maybe it just so happens that they are both eager and willing to love every stranger; both of them bleeding hearts that find peace within touch and gentle gestures of intimacy.
Svedka knows nothing of jealousy; the feeling is unknown to him and even if was described to him, he is certain he would not be able to grasp it. That is why he doesn’t hear any of that emotion in her voice, only the soft vocals of someone who knew.
When he turns to her, craning his neck to glance first at her floating halo and then the silver-gray of the pockets where her eyes (beautiful once, he’s certain) should have been. There is no surprise in his expression, merely a glance of his cerulean eyes across her face as she speaks to him with all the gentleness of understanding. Her answer to his question does nothing to satisfy him and his handsome face pulls into a frown she cannot see (though he has a feeling she could feel it all the same). She is poignant in her answer - there will be no understanding of why.
Though it troubles him, Svedka accepts it - for what else could he do?
He turns to face the sea again, focusing instead on the meaningless patterns that she traces on his skin with the warmth of her muzzle. His mouth presses together in a line, his expression now thoughtful and patient. “He called and - ” Svedka’s voice cuts off for a moment, grasping for the right words, for it hadn’t really been him that answered, but it was his body that showed up. “I couldn’t stop the part of myself that wanted to answer to him.” His voice remains even and calm as he tells her of the lion, how Carnage had ripped it from him and let it kill him - how he had traveled into the afterlife, sent further and further in, only to come face to face with himself again. Part of him knew he had died a second death, but it didn’t make any sense so he tries to forget.
When he mentions being drawn back across over the line of life and death, and how part of him (the lion) was left in the afterlife, there is something like regret in his voice. “I was so scared.” He says softly, barely above a whisper. He winces. “I still am.”
Svedka doesn’t turn to her, but leans closer into her warmth. “Are you?”
svedka
@[Ryatah]