[Of course he is still smiling. It looks- He makes it look so godsdamned easy.]
I do not need your help.
[She protests the idea that she would require his aid, that she would let herself be consumed in the first place... but it is automatic. The sort of defenses she has always cultivated just to protect herself and her goal of becoming a warrior. But that... She had been away for over a year now. Longer than she'd even been held a a prisoner in that village of orphans. Longer than she'd known Matsukaze.
And still, here...]
I need-
[Is this what Akua had spoken of? Challenging? Her expression is still so conflicted, her fingers still curled at her breast.]
I want-
[What? For him to look at her like he had beneath the roots? For someone to promise her that they would support her no matter her choices, how many enemies she made? For him to kiss her until she forgot how conflicted she felt? Her brow furrows beneath the obscuring line of the leather patch on her face, her eye betrays the surge of insecurity.]
I want your promise.
[If she had that... if she could just believe in that...
no subject
I do not need your help.
[She protests the idea that she would require his aid, that she would let herself be consumed in the first place... but it is automatic. The sort of defenses she has always cultivated just to protect herself and her goal of becoming a warrior. But that... She had been away for over a year now. Longer than she'd even been held a a prisoner in that village of orphans. Longer than she'd known Matsukaze.
And still, here...]
I need-
[Is this what Akua had spoken of? Challenging? Her expression is still so conflicted, her fingers still curled at her breast.]
I want-
[What? For him to look at her like he had beneath the roots? For someone to promise her that they would support her no matter her choices, how many enemies she made? For him to kiss her until she forgot how conflicted she felt? Her brow furrows beneath the obscuring line of the leather patch on her face, her eye betrays the surge of insecurity.]
I want your promise.
[If she had that... if she could just believe in that...