i’ve been training like a soldier; i’ve been burning through this sorrow
His body is alert, nerves thrumming with awareness. Decades of training have prepared him for this, he knows, and while the air around the ruins has grown stagnant, the metallic tang having long since faded, that does not stop the fear that settles into his belly like a seed. (He had once hated himself for every ounce of fear he ever felt, but he has long since grown past such foolish things of youth. Fear was as much a tool as bravery and he relies on it now, letting the adrenaline sharpen the senses he still has.)
It is how he hears the strange scraping of her walk, the drag of her tail.
There is a low, fast clicking noise as he maps the area once more, angling his translucent head to the side, finding the general shape of her perched on the rock. He cannot make out the details of her, cannot see the horns that curve and the tears that run claws down her cheeks, but he knows enough that she is different from the Baltians he knows best. She is more like the enemy, he thinks, but he quickly dismisses the idea.
It was impossible.
Even here, even after the heart shook.
Impossible.
He tips an ear toward her as she murmurs and barely makes out the sound of it, his teeth clenching at the designation. In his youth, he might’ve snapped back at her. Might have said something foolish and hot-headed as a retort. But now he just bristles, holding onto the reins of his temper with the sure-footedness of a soldier who knew exactly how to keep control. He angles his masked head toward her, the water still dripping from him and splashing onto the ground, and even though he cannot see her, you would barely know it for the way that he seems perfectly attuned to where she is. “Where are we?” he asks, and if he is embarrassed to be a soldier asking such basic questions, it does not show on the stern lines of his face.
nyktos
@rend