[When Claude enters the clearing, Hayame is standing by the stream, her back to him and her arms down by her sides. Her head is slightly down, her tail slightly traitorous, flicking back and forth in betrayal of how anxious she was despite how cold or calm she was trying to appear.
A good spot. A good spot... to talk.
She cannot call him a fool today. She is the fool, who had dreamed this would go differently, who thought she could somehow speak to him again as if nothing had changed, like she could just rewind... Wouldn't it be better if they did? Wouldn't it make all of this easier... ?
Hayame doesn't stir much, but her eye drifts to the side and down, watching Claude (Khalid) splash water on his face as she bites into her bottom lip. ... He looked hale. ... That was good.]
[He knows her body language well enough to recognise when she's anxious, but he doesn't comment, instead just doing the opposite and flopping back on the grass to sit, taking in the scenery like he finds the whole thing relaxing. (It would be moreso if Hayame relaxed, too, but... one thing at a time.) He looks up at the sky, clear to see through the canopy of the trees.]
Forests are still kind of a novelty for me, you know. Almyra doesn't really have them, so Fódlan was the first time I got to experience any.
[The sights, the smells, the animals and insects, how green it was, learning to climb a tree for the first time... As a student at the academy, it was all foreign to him.
Still, before he gets lost in reminiscing, he fixes his attention back up at Hayame.]
Enough about me rambling, anyway. I want to shut my big mouth and listen to you, for once.
[It doesn't surprise her that he just... just makes himself comfortable. She... She hasn't laid down in days. Not since she had slunk to Springstar to have her Discord cleansed, in desperate attempt to prevent herself from trying to sate her heat. That had not gone... how she'd intended. But at least it meant there had been one night she'd slept on her belly since they'd lost the Oracle, instead of standing stiff with her knees locked in the corner of her makeshift stalls or beneath trees in the woods of Alenroux.
Forests. He talks about forests, first, then offers to listen to her, but what does he want her to say? She'd already tried to scare him off, to convince him that she was unlovable, that she wasn't deserving of love, and yet-]
... Echigo province is covered in forests. And mountains.
[She doesn't turn from her position by the water's edge... but she does turn her face just enough that she can keep him in the corner of her eye. She imagines that's not what he means when he said he wanted to listen to her. But he doesn't want her to fight, so... what is there? Does he want to hear about her world?]
[He flops back on the grass onto his back next, linking his arms behind his head.]
If I see it in person one day, I'll have an idea of what I'm in for.
[But he said he'd listen, so he goes quiet again, watching her. Of course, there was still that one thing he really wanted to talk about, but hadn't Hayame been the one to approach him? Wasn't there anything she wanted to say?]
[He still entertained the idea that he would somehow be able to come to her world. She didn't know why she would have thought he'd given it up already, it's not as if... for all she had run from his confessions, for all she had insulted his proposals as fantasy... she did not think him weak-willed or irresolute.
But.
She stares at him, while pretending she is not. She finally moves, but just to cross her arms defensively, one hand rubbing up and down a muscular bicep. The flush from earlier has faded slightly, but there is still some warmth staining her cheeks. Her tail whips at the backs of her thighs and hocks. She can tell he is waiting for her to say something...
The words, though, are trapped in her throat. She does not want to say more than she has to, guessing what it is he is waiting for. She feels as if anything she gives him will just become fuel for another fight, when really, she did not want to, she just wanted him to... to give up of his own volition. To realize he has made a mistake.
And yet for some reason... No. She knows the reason. A part of her did. But is she just supposed to admit it out loud? Something as pathetic and small of her as that... ? As being unable to let go of the one person in the roots who had offered to choose her?
[The bird continues its song, and still the silence between them stretches on. He's watching with a small smile on his face, noticing the slight heat in her cheeks still, that anxious tail still going. He can't read her thoughts, but he thinks he can get the measure of her, and he moves to prop himself up on his elbows.]
...You might realise at this point that you can't change my mind. I know how I feel. So the only real question left to answer is... Do you like being with me? I think you've already answered that question.
[By seeking him out. By humouring him even now with his requests to talk, even though it's seemingly the most difficult thing in the world, right now, while he just lounges around and watches. Still, he won't be completely difficult about it now that he's given her a chance, and instead, he opts to help.]
I think the rest just comes with time, you know? Like a muscle that wasted away from lack of use, feelings are kinda like that, too. Accepting that it's not a lie, or a mistake, or that you're not worthy... Maybe the guilt won't stop eating at you until your world is restored, and you can set things right. Maybe it'll never go away.
But, it'll all seem a lot more achievable, if you have someone to help you along on your journey. A shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen to your complaints, someone to hunt with, to tend your wounds, to smile with...
[Ah, there he goes again, opening his big mouth when he tried not to, and now he's finding himself reeling off a list like a proposal. Yet there's so much he wants to give her, that all seems like it barely scratches the surface.
He sits up properly, offering a smile that appears-- shy. ]
...Well, if you want those things, having them would only make you stronger.
[It does not feel so long ago that Hayame was venting to Akua in her makeshift stable, railing against the advice the other woman was giving her and arguing with her about the nature of friendship as if she could change it through simple force of will alone. The villainess's words had left cracks in nearly everything she said, from her right to feel betrayed by the actions those who supposedly cared for her had taken to her insistence that it should not be so wrong to expect loyalty from those who would claim to be her friend, and what that had left in its wake...
She had said that people who truly cared about you would challenge you. That you would enjoy being challenged by them. But what did that mean? Hayame has never had the time nor the desire to philosophize over such things. By the time she'd begun to question what she'd always known, begun to imagine that things could be different... she had offered to give up her life, and the time for thinking never came. But in Horos, now in Kenos... she had reached a breaking point.
Now... She has to change, if she wants to survive without trying to crush her own shard underfoot or throwing herself recklessly into fight after fight in the hopes that one might become her last. If she wants to survive to see her world again, to die where she belongs...]
I cannot...
[What? Stop trying to change his mind? Love him? Accept that he isn't lying? Let the guilt go? She doesn't know, and it makes her expression twist, her skin heat, her one remaining eye darken. He smiles at her, shy and sincere, and what- She had long forgotten how to smile, those muscles wasted away from lack of use just like he spoke of her feelings, and she... she turns her face away. Her shoulders stiffen.]
... Is that what you wish from me?
[Someone to cry on his shoulder, to complain in his ear, to hunt with, to come to him to have her wounds tended, to smile with...]
Is that not any different than allies? From "friends"?
I'd like more than that. Of course I would. [He had already said as much, demonstrated as much. But any affection he offered here and now had been swatted away, so he didn't dare try that again, maining a respectful distance so she didn't feel crowded in.]
But this is about what you want. If you want to think of me as just a friend, or if... maybe those deeper feelings are mutual... Either way, it would be wrong to keep forcing my feelings on you without understanding your perspective.
[Or helping her understand her perspective, as the case might be. He thinks back to the roots and how she had kissed him back, messy and inexperienced as it had been, but that might have just been the shock of the situation. Or the desperation of someone who craved affection of some kind, any kind.]
If... when we kissed before, and you returned it... if you were just playing along with my own selfish whims, I'd prefer to know.
[There is a part of her that understands this must be a kindness. That to other people, who can discuss such things without shame, who understood their own hearts... it would be a courtesy to speak so plainly of these things. But the rest of her... would rather fight ten men than have this conversation. That he asks her such things so directly...
She had come from a world where "proper" affection, between people of decent social standing, was never displayed in public. Not even husband and wife would touch each hands or shoulder around others, let alone discuss things so plainly. Hayame had seen things, because she was a jinba, and jinba were treated as chattel, because the grooms who raised her had been rough frontiers men who did not concern themselves with propriety or who overheard their exploits at the brothels, but what she'd hoped for-
What she'd hoped for had been the life of a warrior. To never be touched, because she simply couldn't fathom a touch that was kind or gentle. But she knows now that... that it isn't impossible. She could have it if she wanted it. If she pursued it.
Claude is sitting right there talking about it. For a moment, she wonders if she kissed him again if he might fall silent. He wants to know if she was just playing along... but...]
... I am a jinba.
[She reminds him in case he had forgotten. It wasn't as if she couldn't imagine jinba and humans being together- she could imagine it all too well, in certain disgraceful circumstances. In heat-addled attempts to be rid of her purity out of spite. But perhaps he was simply blinded by emotion or the same sense of charging ahead without thinking that had led him to confess in the first place. (If she looks at the water in the stream at a certain angle, she can just about see him...)]
No matter how human my lips might feel.
[- Had he actually thought about that? (She had, even if she cannot admit to the pervasive fantasies that had dogged her last heat, unwilling to contact him for fear it would taint everything.) Was she... desirable to him? Or was she only desirable despite?]
[And yes, though he wouldn't admit it to her before, he had thought about it. First at the masquerade, when they had shared a room and she had been in heat. He had tried to be a gentleman about the whole thing when she turned down his offer to help, but even if he'd framed it as a joke at the time, he would have readily gone along with it if she said yes. Had even imagined afterwards how it might have gone, how it would have been easiest to compensate for their differences in size. (The bath, or the bed...?)
But he didn't want to think of a friend, or an ally, or whatever they were in those terms, so he quietly put that fantasy away. She wasn't an object, and wanted to be treated with the dignity she deserved, when she felt so embarassed and inconvenienced by her inhuman status in a world designed mostly for humans. Now, on the other side of it, though, he realises she must think that not only is she unloveable, but seemingly undesirable, too.
His eyes trail along the equine half of her body, the sleek dark tail and the dun coat, the strong muscles which not so long ago were quivering with anxiety. Even in moments of her so-called weakness, they're inextricably Hayame, the person he loves. What kind of monster would pick and choose what to love and what to ignore about someone's body?]
And I'm a human. [His gaze moves back to her face, even as she avoids looking directly at him. He's not someone from the same world who had enslaved her people, but a human all the same. Even without that, he's comparatively frail, weak, and probably not at all an adequate partner for a jinba, when he really thinks about it. But for someone whose entire life's work was to remove the dividing lines between peoples, it just seems like a triviality to him.]
I think you're beautiful exactly as you are, Hayame. I love every part of you, and I'd make sure you knew it.
It is her turn to be reminded. He did not come from her world, he did not even look like the men of her world did, for they were paler of skin and darker of hair. She had never seen a human man possess eyes of jade, like he had. ... But he was still human, the same species that had hunted hers down in the field and peaks, enslaving them and breeding them until a once proud race had become tools for wars they hadn't started. In her desperation, she had once managed to let a god lay hands upon her, because she knew that shape meant nothing to a divinity able to change his own at whim. She had managed to let a human woman touch her, because... because she was a woman, but-
Could she allow it? Would there not come a point when she began to flinch away or feel her gut roil in learned disgust? She doesn't... She doesn't know, and she is afraid to find out. She is afraid to see the look that might cross his face, if he were to see fear on hers instead of pleasure.
Hayame's fingers curl, and she pulls the hand to her breast. Should she have asked for his shard? No, she didn't... It had felt so overwhelming, so undeniable, when she had held it directly, and she does not know if she can maintain decorum if she had it. Instead, she thinks... she thinks of what he had said in the dark of the roots, her tail flicking anxiously behind her. She thinks of what Akua had said, again, about how she mustn't think of others' choices as betrayals...
But she had felt only that, beneath the eyes of the Iconoclast Oracle. Her strength and her companionship had not been enough to keep Liem Talbott from turning to Zenith, her words weren't enough to sway Amos, her offerings and his blessing weren't enough to keep Set from gallivanting with all of her enemies, their pact wasn't enough to stop Akua from interfering with her revenge on the demon who had taken her eye... None of it was enough. She hadn't been enough for them.
And it felt pathetic, and small, and womanly, but she wanted... she wanted to be chosen. Was it so wrong? Was it so impossible in this place, where loyalty wasn't shape by the rigid honor code she understood? Set had chosen Silco. Amos had chosen Yima. Liem had chosen Zenith. Akua had chosen Sebastian. At least, that is how it had felt to her in the moment, hot with the fury that always flickered inside of her, ready to roar to life all too easily. But Claude... Khalid-]
... You said you would be on my side. No matter what.
[When he'd thought the world was ending, and surely she could only wreak so much more havoc in the roots. A hard swallow forces it's way down her throat, and she fights to keep the weakness out of her voice, to sound strong and sure. Finally, she turns back to face him, her expression twisted with shame and longing to believe.]
Is it still true? You will stand by me, even when Zenith comes for my head? Even if I make enemies of half of Meridian? Even if I call you a fool and turn from your compromises and your talks?
It's not conditional. You can insult me or disagree as much as you like. I prefer people to disagree with me over yes-men who never tell me how something could be better.
[He smiles wryly, even as she turns to him where he sits. Maybe there are some things they'll never agree on... but then, maybe not. If Almyra or Fódlan could change their minds, why not people here, too?]
I just don't want this conflict to consume you. If there's anything I can do to stop that, then I will.
[Even if she feels like she doesn't need to be protected, or that she'd sooner die fighting Zenith than live with dishonour, or whatever other notions she might entertain in the future. He never claimed to be impartial in his overtures for peace; he just abhorred unnecessary conflict, Hayame included in that.]
Edited (gets banned for godmoding) 2023-06-15 14:47 (UTC)
[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...
[His heart leaps in his chest, and there's hope dancing behind his eyes like a growing spark, even as she fumbles through articulating what she needs. Wants. Almost a little too quickly, he gets to his feet, feeling breathless, that hopeful smile still on his face.]
It's a promise. [He gives it without hesitation.] Even if we don't always agree, even if you don't need my help, I'll always support you.
[Maybe it would pour cold water on his efforts at diplomacy, when he was trying to ingratitiate himself with Zenith, and she tended to trend towards the exact opposite, to put it mildly. Or maybe he could be a shelter for her from their ire. Smooth things over before they have a chance to get out of hand. There were many possibilities of how things could go from here, but he was still determined to get the best outcome for everyone involved, and he was determined that the woman before him wouldn't be left behind in that. She might be stubborn, and proud, and headstrong, but she was worth love and protection as much as anyone else. Even moreso, now she had become someone so irreplacable to him.
Maybe with enough love, she could finally let go of her anger.
He offers a hand to Hayame. Not to offer a formal handshake, as if to seal a deal with an ally, but to reach for her, and see if she would reach back and take his hand without rejecting it. To see if she might finally believe.]
[She could still run. She could slap his hand away and berate him for his insolence. The part of her still shackled to her past and the strict customs she had been born into… that part of her wanted to. But he’s standing, promising, holding out his hand to her…
And she had been too late to trust, once. When Matsukaze had offered her a life lived free and people who might eventually come to love her… She hadn’t been able to do it. The shackles had been too heavy, the press of all she’d ever known too fresh… and that had been the biggest mistake of her life.
This time…
It can’t be said she looks completely sure. There is hesitation in her eye and a quiver in her hocks, but slowly, cautiously, the flush blossoming back into existence on her skin…
[Her hand is so warm in his, and he feels a surge of gratitude, relief, elation. This is real, and she isn't realising all his worst fears and turning him away, despite his expectations. He draws her hand up to his lips and kisses it as a Fódlan gentleman might, but there's no real formality in the gesture. His expression is both playful and indescribably fond as his gaze lifts to meet hers.
Then Claude-- no, he was Khalid to her now, wasn't he? -- lowers her hand again, gives it a squeeze as he steps closer to close the distance between them, studying her face as if to remember this moment, engrave it on his heart.]
Can I...?
[His eyes go from her lips and upward again. He's asking permission this time, to make up for the desperation he had sprung on her in the roots.]
[Predictably, she flusters slightly when his lips press to her knuckles, when he fixes her with that look that is so warm and yet still slightly teasing, as if he will test every little boundary she has and gently scuff his toe over the line. She thought he would have learned better by now... or perhaps she has not been strict enough with him. She let herself cave in to the affection, craving it in a place she is loathe to acknowledge, reminded of how that man had once looked at her when days were brighter- the one she would only see again to die together.
He asks... and she turns her red cheeks away from him, then pulls her hand from his. She withdraws, is she truly about to flee after all this... ?
No.
She sidles a few feet to the left, coming to a stop next to a large stone at the edge of the stream where she waits somewhat expectantly, her blush growing stronger by the second. The rockseems to be roughly the perfect shape that, if he were to stand on it... he might reach or slightly overtake the foot-and-a-few-inches she has on him in height.]
[His gaze follows her as she sidles along, and he lets out a laugh. Oh, so she was going to make fun of his height, was she? (He knows that's not actually her intention, and is actually a good idea, but its funny all the same.) He steps up onto the rock, and manages to reach more or less a similar height to her if he stands up straight.]
Hey, would you look at that. I've magically hit a growth spurt. [There is no rock here. Not at all.
All joking aside, he reaches to touch her jaw, her neck, below the patch covering her ruined eye, his fingers feather-light as his green eyes study her, now that it's easier to see her up close. He still can't believe she's accepted him, that the ruddiness spreading across her complexion is because of him, that she'll no longer give into the temptation to flee. Softly, he can only voice one thought.]
[She should be more annoyed at his laugh. She should resent that he knows how to laugh. But instead, she just grows redder the longer he keeps her waiting, knowing what he has asked her permission for. The line of her mouth thins, like she's trying hard not to let it be seen that she might find anything about what he's said or done to be amusing.
... It's odd, to be face-to-face with a human. She doesn't do him the indignity of looking down at the rock.
Instead, sharp canines nip into her lip when his hand finally closes the distance between, smoothing along the lines of her jaw and down her neck. It makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up, a little shiver tracing down her long spine to end in a twitchy flick of her tail. Of course he would torture her even still, forcing her to notice how vibrant and bright his eyes are, to inhale his scent, to hear him call himself lucky to have her acceptance...]
No...
[She finds herself tipping her face into the touch of his hand despite what she says, her voice a quiet, embarrassed murmur. Lucky?]
[He brushes a thumb along her skin, leaning close, until his breath intermingles with hers, still studying every little reaction he's able to elicit. The way her sharp teeth, too sharp to be human, bite at her lip. When he speaks, it's in a low murmur.]
Unfortunately for you, I guess you're stuck with this fool.
[Because she accepted him, no matter how foolish and irrational he seems, no matter how much he doesn't seem to make sense to her. He closes the distance to kiss her, finally, his lips gentle yet urgent, chasing what they'd left behind at the roots of the Tree.]
[She almost tries to protest. To claim she wasn't stuck with him at all, that at any point if he became too vexing that she would be gone and deny she had ever known him, ever allowed him to touch her and say such things to her, that she had only so much tolerance in her hearts-
But he kisses her, and those words never quite make it to her tongue.
When they had kissed beneath the roots, sudden and desperate and unexpected, she had been a woman who could count such acts on the fingers of her hand, collected in the anonymous, mask-obscured night at the World's Edge when she had been tortured by the contents of spiked drinks and attempting to be rid of something. Since her last heat, laced with Discord that had driven her to seek relief, she had somehow become more shamefully versed in such things... but there are still traces of inexperience on her lips, of shyness in how she slowly tips her head to meet him.
How strange to be standing and not having to bend down to reach. To be able to move her hands upward and find a place in his shirt... to possessively curl her fingers.]
[She hasn't bitten his lip yet this time, at least, but the way her fingers clutch at his shirt is certainly familiar. He's only grateful this time that she isn't crying, that the taste of salty tears is no longer on her skin. He hopes, perhaps, that he can take care of her well enough that she never has to cry like that again, pours that protective feeling into the kiss, a kiss that floods him with warmth, lights a fire deep inside him.
It's not a wildfire that could burn him inside out, as he's sometimes heard passion described. It's a comforting, gentle thing, something he wants to protect and nurture, lest the cold and the dark parts of Kenos try to extinguish it.
He draws back, gently pressing his forehead to hers, his hand moving along the fine line of her neck to her powerful shoulder. He doesn't want to forget this feeling, for as long as he lives.]
[Despite how many times she has called him a fool... Maybe she is one, too. To let herself feel, as he kisses her, that perhaps she really could believe in all the things he offered her. That she could show him her weaknesses and not be judged, that he would look at her the same way no matter what he saw, how pathetic her tears were... That maybe he really would chose her side no matter what, that he would protect her even in those times when she still vehemently denied that she needed protection.
Her fingers tighten in his clothing as they kiss because... because the rational part of her still thinks he will come to his senses, the weak, emotional part of her doesn't want him to go after she's avoided him for weeks and tried fleeing from his offer of affection. Even as the kiss breaks and he presses their foreheads together from his borrowed, equal height...
She doesn't let go. Her breathing is shallow and slightly too quick, her cheeks still red... and one of her back legs is half-up, hoof quivering in the air and occasionally pawing at the earth. It feels like any words she could conjure up would be the wrong ones, her protests seem stupid, now-
So she doesn't say anything at all, waiting for him to break the silence instead as she inhales his scent from up close.]
[He catches the pawing from the corner of his eye, the raised hoof as he glances down, and it reminds him just what an odd sight they must look. How unfamiliar much of her body language still is to him, when she's usually so proud, and angry, and tense. It's odd, but not wrong, and he'd dare any imagined observer to say otherwise.
If anything, the little motion of hers is -- dare he even think the forbidden word -- cute. He smiles and kisses her again, at the corner of her mouth, and decides to keep what he says next casual.]
Not so bad, right?
[Kissing, he means. Nothing bad happened, and her warrior integrity wasn't suddenly shattered on the spot, or whatever else she was presumably thinking to get herself so worked up.]
[He kisses at the corner of her mouth and her reaction is too slow, shifting to try and capture his lips almost instinctively but he is already apart again, murmuring words into the scant space between them, and at least… at least he has the courage to speak. In that… he is braver than her, she has to admit.]
I didn’t say… it would be bad…
[Kissing him.
She’d said that he was an idiot to love her, that she couldn’t trust or believe so easily, that he had just been confused and desperate at the end of the world looking for someone to be together with, that she was a warrior and not a woman… and yes, there had been a part of her that was afraid something wrong would happen if she let a man kiss her without the excuse of seasonal desire or spiked drinks. But she hadn’t thought he would be a bad kisser.
In the depths of her heat when she’d fantasized about calling him for help… he’d been quite good at it, actually. Not that. She could just say that???]
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no subject
A good spot. A good spot... to talk.
She cannot call him a fool today. She is the fool, who had dreamed this would go differently, who thought she could somehow speak to him again as if nothing had changed, like she could just rewind... Wouldn't it be better if they did? Wouldn't it make all of this easier... ?
Hayame doesn't stir much, but her eye drifts to the side and down, watching Claude (Khalid) splash water on his face as she bites into her bottom lip. ... He looked hale. ... That was good.]
no subject
Forests are still kind of a novelty for me, you know. Almyra doesn't really have them, so Fódlan was the first time I got to experience any.
[The sights, the smells, the animals and insects, how green it was, learning to climb a tree for the first time... As a student at the academy, it was all foreign to him.
Still, before he gets lost in reminiscing, he fixes his attention back up at Hayame.]
Enough about me rambling, anyway. I want to shut my big mouth and listen to you, for once.
no subject
Forests. He talks about forests, first, then offers to listen to her, but what does he want her to say? She'd already tried to scare him off, to convince him that she was unlovable, that she wasn't deserving of love, and yet-]
... Echigo province is covered in forests. And mountains.
[She doesn't turn from her position by the water's edge... but she does turn her face just enough that she can keep him in the corner of her eye. She imagines that's not what he means when he said he wanted to listen to her. But he doesn't want her to fight, so... what is there? Does he want to hear about her world?]
no subject
[He flops back on the grass onto his back next, linking his arms behind his head.]
If I see it in person one day, I'll have an idea of what I'm in for.
[But he said he'd listen, so he goes quiet again, watching her. Of course, there was still that one thing he really wanted to talk about, but hadn't Hayame been the one to approach him? Wasn't there anything she wanted to say?]
no subject
But.
She stares at him, while pretending she is not. She finally moves, but just to cross her arms defensively, one hand rubbing up and down a muscular bicep. The flush from earlier has faded slightly, but there is still some warmth staining her cheeks. Her tail whips at the backs of her thighs and hocks. She can tell he is waiting for her to say something...
The words, though, are trapped in her throat. She does not want to say more than she has to, guessing what it is he is waiting for. She feels as if anything she gives him will just become fuel for another fight, when really, she did not want to, she just wanted him to... to give up of his own volition. To realize he has made a mistake.
And yet for some reason... No. She knows the reason. A part of her did. But is she just supposed to admit it out loud? Something as pathetic and small of her as that... ? As being unable to let go of the one person in the roots who had offered to choose her?
In the distance, a songbird trills.]
no subject
...You might realise at this point that you can't change my mind. I know how I feel. So the only real question left to answer is... Do you like being with me? I think you've already answered that question.
[By seeking him out. By humouring him even now with his requests to talk, even though it's seemingly the most difficult thing in the world, right now, while he just lounges around and watches. Still, he won't be completely difficult about it now that he's given her a chance, and instead, he opts to help.]
I think the rest just comes with time, you know? Like a muscle that wasted away from lack of use, feelings are kinda like that, too. Accepting that it's not a lie, or a mistake, or that you're not worthy... Maybe the guilt won't stop eating at you until your world is restored, and you can set things right. Maybe it'll never go away.
But, it'll all seem a lot more achievable, if you have someone to help you along on your journey. A shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen to your complaints, someone to hunt with, to tend your wounds, to smile with...
[Ah, there he goes again, opening his big mouth when he tried not to, and now he's finding himself reeling off a list like a proposal. Yet there's so much he wants to give her, that all seems like it barely scratches the surface.
He sits up properly, offering a smile that appears-- shy. ]
...Well, if you want those things, having them would only make you stronger.
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She had said that people who truly cared about you would challenge you. That you would enjoy being challenged by them. But what did that mean? Hayame has never had the time nor the desire to philosophize over such things. By the time she'd begun to question what she'd always known, begun to imagine that things could be different... she had offered to give up her life, and the time for thinking never came. But in Horos, now in Kenos... she had reached a breaking point.
Now... She has to change, if she wants to survive without trying to crush her own shard underfoot or throwing herself recklessly into fight after fight in the hopes that one might become her last. If she wants to survive to see her world again, to die where she belongs...]
I cannot...
[What? Stop trying to change his mind? Love him? Accept that he isn't lying? Let the guilt go? She doesn't know, and it makes her expression twist, her skin heat, her one remaining eye darken. He smiles at her, shy and sincere, and what- She had long forgotten how to smile, those muscles wasted away from lack of use just like he spoke of her feelings, and she... she turns her face away. Her shoulders stiffen.]
... Is that what you wish from me?
[Someone to cry on his shoulder, to complain in his ear, to hunt with, to come to him to have her wounds tended, to smile with...]
Is that not any different than allies? From "friends"?
[He had said he...
He had kissed her.]
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But this is about what you want. If you want to think of me as just a friend, or if... maybe those deeper feelings are mutual... Either way, it would be wrong to keep forcing my feelings on you without understanding your perspective.
[Or helping her understand her perspective, as the case might be. He thinks back to the roots and how she had kissed him back, messy and inexperienced as it had been, but that might have just been the shock of the situation. Or the desperation of someone who craved affection of some kind, any kind.]
If... when we kissed before, and you returned it... if you were just playing along with my own selfish whims, I'd prefer to know.
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She had come from a world where "proper" affection, between people of decent social standing, was never displayed in public. Not even husband and wife would touch each hands or shoulder around others, let alone discuss things so plainly. Hayame had seen things, because she was a jinba, and jinba were treated as chattel, because the grooms who raised her had been rough frontiers men who did not concern themselves with propriety or who overheard their exploits at the brothels, but what she'd hoped for-
What she'd hoped for had been the life of a warrior. To never be touched, because she simply couldn't fathom a touch that was kind or gentle. But she knows now that... that it isn't impossible. She could have it if she wanted it. If she pursued it.
Claude is sitting right there talking about it. For a moment, she wonders if she kissed him again if he might fall silent. He wants to know if she was just playing along... but...]
... I am a jinba.
[She reminds him in case he had forgotten. It wasn't as if she couldn't imagine jinba and humans being together- she could imagine it all too well, in certain disgraceful circumstances. In heat-addled attempts to be rid of her purity out of spite. But perhaps he was simply blinded by emotion or the same sense of charging ahead without thinking that had led him to confess in the first place. (If she looks at the water in the stream at a certain angle, she can just about see him...)]
No matter how human my lips might feel.
[- Had he actually thought about that? (She had, even if she cannot admit to the pervasive fantasies that had dogged her last heat, unwilling to contact him for fear it would taint everything.) Was she... desirable to him? Or was she only desirable despite?]
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[And yes, though he wouldn't admit it to her before, he had thought about it. First at the masquerade, when they had shared a room and she had been in heat. He had tried to be a gentleman about the whole thing when she turned down his offer to help, but even if he'd framed it as a joke at the time, he would have readily gone along with it if she said yes. Had even imagined afterwards how it might have gone, how it would have been easiest to compensate for their differences in size. (The bath, or the bed...?)
But he didn't want to think of a friend, or an ally, or whatever they were in those terms, so he quietly put that fantasy away. She wasn't an object, and wanted to be treated with the dignity she deserved, when she felt so embarassed and inconvenienced by her inhuman status in a world designed mostly for humans. Now, on the other side of it, though, he realises she must think that not only is she unloveable, but seemingly undesirable, too.
His eyes trail along the equine half of her body, the sleek dark tail and the dun coat, the strong muscles which not so long ago were quivering with anxiety. Even in moments of her so-called weakness, they're inextricably Hayame, the person he loves. What kind of monster would pick and choose what to love and what to ignore about someone's body?]
And I'm a human. [His gaze moves back to her face, even as she avoids looking directly at him. He's not someone from the same world who had enslaved her people, but a human all the same. Even without that, he's comparatively frail, weak, and probably not at all an adequate partner for a jinba, when he really thinks about it. But for someone whose entire life's work was to remove the dividing lines between peoples, it just seems like a triviality to him.]
I think you're beautiful exactly as you are, Hayame. I love every part of you, and I'd make sure you knew it.
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It is her turn to be reminded. He did not come from her world, he did not even look like the men of her world did, for they were paler of skin and darker of hair. She had never seen a human man possess eyes of jade, like he had. ... But he was still human, the same species that had hunted hers down in the field and peaks, enslaving them and breeding them until a once proud race had become tools for wars they hadn't started. In her desperation, she had once managed to let a god lay hands upon her, because she knew that shape meant nothing to a divinity able to change his own at whim. She had managed to let a human woman touch her, because... because she was a woman, but-
Could she allow it? Would there not come a point when she began to flinch away or feel her gut roil in learned disgust? She doesn't... She doesn't know, and she is afraid to find out. She is afraid to see the look that might cross his face, if he were to see fear on hers instead of pleasure.
Hayame's fingers curl, and she pulls the hand to her breast. Should she have asked for his shard? No, she didn't... It had felt so overwhelming, so undeniable, when she had held it directly, and she does not know if she can maintain decorum if she had it. Instead, she thinks... she thinks of what he had said in the dark of the roots, her tail flicking anxiously behind her. She thinks of what Akua had said, again, about how she mustn't think of others' choices as betrayals...
But she had felt only that, beneath the eyes of the Iconoclast Oracle. Her strength and her companionship had not been enough to keep Liem Talbott from turning to Zenith, her words weren't enough to sway Amos, her offerings and his blessing weren't enough to keep Set from gallivanting with all of her enemies, their pact wasn't enough to stop Akua from interfering with her revenge on the demon who had taken her eye... None of it was enough. She hadn't been enough for them.
And it felt pathetic, and small, and womanly, but she wanted... she wanted to be chosen. Was it so wrong? Was it so impossible in this place, where loyalty wasn't shape by the rigid honor code she understood? Set had chosen Silco. Amos had chosen Yima. Liem had chosen Zenith. Akua had chosen Sebastian. At least, that is how it had felt to her in the moment, hot with the fury that always flickered inside of her, ready to roar to life all too easily. But Claude... Khalid-]
... You said you would be on my side. No matter what.
[When he'd thought the world was ending, and surely she could only wreak so much more havoc in the roots. A hard swallow forces it's way down her throat, and she fights to keep the weakness out of her voice, to sound strong and sure. Finally, she turns back to face him, her expression twisted with shame and longing to believe.]
Is it still true? You will stand by me, even when Zenith comes for my head? Even if I make enemies of half of Meridian? Even if I call you a fool and turn from your compromises and your talks?
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[He smiles wryly, even as she turns to him where he sits. Maybe there are some things they'll never agree on... but then, maybe not. If Almyra or Fódlan could change their minds, why not people here, too?]
I just don't want this conflict to consume you. If there's anything I can do to stop that, then I will.
[Even if she feels like she doesn't need to be protected, or that she'd sooner die fighting Zenith than live with dishonour, or whatever other notions she might entertain in the future. He never claimed to be impartial in his overtures for peace; he just abhorred unnecessary conflict, Hayame included in that.]
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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...
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It's a promise. [He gives it without hesitation.] Even if we don't always agree, even if you don't need my help, I'll always support you.
[Maybe it would pour cold water on his efforts at diplomacy, when he was trying to ingratitiate himself with Zenith, and she tended to trend towards the exact opposite, to put it mildly. Or maybe he could be a shelter for her from their ire. Smooth things over before they have a chance to get out of hand. There were many possibilities of how things could go from here, but he was still determined to get the best outcome for everyone involved, and he was determined that the woman before him wouldn't be left behind in that. She might be stubborn, and proud, and headstrong, but she was worth love and protection as much as anyone else. Even moreso, now she had become someone so irreplacable to him.
Maybe with enough love, she could finally let go of her anger.
He offers a hand to Hayame. Not to offer a formal handshake, as if to seal a deal with an ally, but to reach for her, and see if she would reach back and take his hand without rejecting it. To see if she might finally believe.]
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And she had been too late to trust, once. When Matsukaze had offered her a life lived free and people who might eventually come to love her… She hadn’t been able to do it. The shackles had been too heavy, the press of all she’d ever known too fresh… and that had been the biggest mistake of her life.
This time…
It can’t be said she looks completely sure. There is hesitation in her eye and a quiver in her hocks, but slowly, cautiously, the flush blossoming back into existence on her skin…
She lays a hand in his.]
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Then Claude-- no, he was Khalid to her now, wasn't he? -- lowers her hand again, gives it a squeeze as he steps closer to close the distance between them, studying her face as if to remember this moment, engrave it on his heart.]
Can I...?
[His eyes go from her lips and upward again. He's asking permission this time, to make up for the desperation he had sprung on her in the roots.]
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He asks... and she turns her red cheeks away from him, then pulls her hand from his. She withdraws, is she truly about to flee after all this... ?
No.
She sidles a few feet to the left, coming to a stop next to a large stone at the edge of the stream where she waits somewhat expectantly, her blush growing stronger by the second. The rockseems to be roughly the perfect shape that, if he were to stand on it... he might reach or slightly overtake the foot-and-a-few-inches she has on him in height.]
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Hey, would you look at that. I've magically hit a growth spurt. [There is no rock here. Not at all.
All joking aside, he reaches to touch her jaw, her neck, below the patch covering her ruined eye, his fingers feather-light as his green eyes study her, now that it's easier to see her up close. He still can't believe she's accepted him, that the ruddiness spreading across her complexion is because of him, that she'll no longer give into the temptation to flee. Softly, he can only voice one thought.]
...I really am lucky.
[He's not talking about the rock any more.]
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... It's odd, to be face-to-face with a human. She doesn't do him the indignity of looking down at the rock.
Instead, sharp canines nip into her lip when his hand finally closes the distance between, smoothing along the lines of her jaw and down her neck. It makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up, a little shiver tracing down her long spine to end in a twitchy flick of her tail. Of course he would torture her even still, forcing her to notice how vibrant and bright his eyes are, to inhale his scent, to hear him call himself lucky to have her acceptance...]
No...
[She finds herself tipping her face into the touch of his hand despite what she says, her voice a quiet, embarrassed murmur. Lucky?]
... You are a fool, Khalid.
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Unfortunately for you, I guess you're stuck with this fool.
[Because she accepted him, no matter how foolish and irrational he seems, no matter how much he doesn't seem to make sense to her. He closes the distance to kiss her, finally, his lips gentle yet urgent, chasing what they'd left behind at the roots of the Tree.]
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But he kisses her, and those words never quite make it to her tongue.
When they had kissed beneath the roots, sudden and desperate and unexpected, she had been a woman who could count such acts on the fingers of her hand, collected in the anonymous, mask-obscured night at the World's Edge when she had been tortured by the contents of spiked drinks and attempting to be rid of something. Since her last heat, laced with Discord that had driven her to seek relief, she had somehow become more shamefully versed in such things... but there are still traces of inexperience on her lips, of shyness in how she slowly tips her head to meet him.
How strange to be standing and not having to bend down to reach. To be able to move her hands upward and find a place in his shirt... to possessively curl her fingers.]
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It's not a wildfire that could burn him inside out, as he's sometimes heard passion described. It's a comforting, gentle thing, something he wants to protect and nurture, lest the cold and the dark parts of Kenos try to extinguish it.
He draws back, gently pressing his forehead to hers, his hand moving along the fine line of her neck to her powerful shoulder. He doesn't want to forget this feeling, for as long as he lives.]
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Her fingers tighten in his clothing as they kiss because... because the rational part of her still thinks he will come to his senses, the weak, emotional part of her doesn't want him to go after she's avoided him for weeks and tried fleeing from his offer of affection. Even as the kiss breaks and he presses their foreheads together from his borrowed, equal height...
She doesn't let go. Her breathing is shallow and slightly too quick, her cheeks still red... and one of her back legs is half-up, hoof quivering in the air and occasionally pawing at the earth. It feels like any words she could conjure up would be the wrong ones, her protests seem stupid, now-
So she doesn't say anything at all, waiting for him to break the silence instead as she inhales his scent from up close.]
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If anything, the little motion of hers is -- dare he even think the forbidden word -- cute. He smiles and kisses her again, at the corner of her mouth, and decides to keep what he says next casual.]
Not so bad, right?
[Kissing, he means. Nothing bad happened, and her warrior integrity wasn't suddenly shattered on the spot, or whatever else she was presumably thinking to get herself so worked up.]
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I didn’t say… it would be bad…
[Kissing him.
She’d said that he was an idiot to love her, that she couldn’t trust or believe so easily, that he had just been confused and desperate at the end of the world looking for someone to be together with, that she was a warrior and not a woman… and yes, there had been a part of her that was afraid something wrong would happen if she let a man kiss her without the excuse of seasonal desire or spiked drinks. But she hadn’t thought he would be a bad kisser.
In the depths of her heat when she’d fantasized about calling him for help… he’d been quite good at it, actually. Not that. She could just say that???]
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