[private] you know you're gonna need to fight

[Selaphiel]

selaphiel

these days i don’t pray when i close my eyes

Gently, he shakes his head. Because Selaphiel, this angel carved from ice, does not have it in him to be insistent. Everything he does is measured, subdued. “I told you that I wanted to be useful to you,” he tells her and perhaps there is an edge of insistence in this but it is mostly tender. “You can ask anything you need from me, Mazikeen, and I will do my best to help you.” How sorry he is that he cannot help her now, especially as he listens to her explanation. 

He searches her face as she speaks, goes on looking at her even after she’s looked away. He swallows thickly, reaches out to touch her, just barely. “That’s an awful burden to bear alone,” he murmurs, drawing away again. And he tells her this, not because he can relate, not because he understands, but because perhaps it might help simply to know that she is not alone in the knowing. If he cannot help in deciding when to call it the end, perhaps he can help simply by knowing that she is fighting this private battle. 

He takes a small, shuffling step backward when she turns her attention back to him. As if he does not know how not to shrink beneath the full weight of her gaze. He is grateful to still be able to call Hyaline home, too, though he does not know how to continue to express his gratitude without seeming childish. So, he meets the edge of humor in her tone with that same cautious, reserved smile and nods. “I’m glad to be here,” he says and hopes that she understands that what he means to say is thank you.

And then it is his turn to shift his focus to the mountains and he rolls his pale shoulders in a kind of shrug. “The sun still hurts my eyes,” he confesses with a short, self-deprecating laugh, “I find it hard to stray too far from the shadows most of the time.”

I just bite my tongue a bit harder

@[Mazikeen] I LOVE THEM