DONT GO WAIT SURELY IT WASNT THAT BAD

❪ finally, hazel hues that catch the last beams of golden light soften, somehow more than they'd already been; so fondly. so very, unmistakably fond. ❫

. . . the shape of my very human, very raw, selfishness.

she nods, her smile growing again; good, she decides. mine. ❫

. . . but I don't want to.

I feel safer with you . . . than anyone.

you're my Hunter . . . I'm your Handler. and I don't want it any other way.

that's . . .

simple, yet elegant, and so very dear to her, and (again, with all the gentleness one would a newborn babe, all the care and meticulous calculation of an artisan,) plants it in his own strands.

the midnight gleams, compliments the azure-bolt humming glow of his horns.

. . .

it's a bit funny, right.ᐣ

you'd think I should be more wary. maybe I should be. the Guild insists I should . . .

❪ finally, a shake of her head. she reaches up to unclip from the patterned textile in her hair the feather pin, midnight blue with starlight at the tips;

haah.

maybe that's a bit of a bad comparison to make. it's definitely a lot scarier for you,

❪ she concedes, albeit self-deprecatingly, ❫

. . . but . . . for someone like me, who isn't very strong, can barely hold her nerve in the dark, who flinches at the rumble of thunder . . .

❪ she pauses a moment on a held breath to simultaneously let her words marinate and consider which ones to use next for elaboration. ❫

I'm here . . . because it's 𝙛𝙪𝙣 to be by your side, Seb.

to see the world alongside someone who's just as afraid, just as mesmerized by it, as I am.

❪ a gentle, half - bitter chuckle of her own, fingertips tracing the base of one pointed ear with the reverence one would an object of worship, ❫

. . . I'm greedy. I'm really greedy, because . . . it doesn't feel like fighting anymore, I think. you know.ᐣ

. . . do you think I'm not . . . a selfish person, too, Sebastian.ᐣ

all of us are. it's a little sad . . . but, some people's selfishness is disguised as benevolence — even when there isn't any underlying further motive.

I'm . . .

. . .

so, as his eyes flutter open once again, she begins. her voice is as threadbare and fleeting - yet - present as the winds of the wilderness, yet she prays it delivers devoid of the prickle of cold that gnaws from those gusts. ❫

that the Hunter should think her breaking of the fruit of her soul, and subsequent offering to him, with the crimson juice of pomegranate running over the contours of her pitifully frail hands and those selfsame wrists — that when she implores him, "eat," as a nuisance to her.

how sweet.

how saccharinely ironic. how poetically, sorrowfully, blissfully unaware — that he should assume this is purely benevolence on her end.

nay, not enough that the corners droop altogether; only enough that the line becomes a slight bit less tangible, more mutually somber and empathetic than outright disgruntled.

beneath the tufts of terrifyingly delicate inky strands, unkempt yet marvelous in that very same bedlam.

close enough that the air, though free in the open wild, is shared the same as the temperature she hopes flows from her body into his and soothes his weary soul. her smile, too, falters.

and she cannot but sigh; softly. delicately; warm as the firelight in deepest winter, but flickering just as faintly amidst the storm.

as if his eyes would yield to tears in this moment, but her thumb perched 'pon the forlorn boy's face gently wipes the crease beneath a glowing eye,

has become something she uses to so selfishly cradle her stolen moments and memories of him close to her chest.

his words reverberate through his body and into hers, through the tether ( firm as it is, yet he 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀, she can feel, because he so abhors the thought of violence upon her )

a perfect eclipse, caught in flesh alone.

were her hands available, were they not occupied cherishing this precious thing she so scantly gets opportune to cradle, she would want to capture the sight, too.
funny, really, that a skill she'd honed for the sole purpose of documentation,