Jude
Heart finally relaxing to a proper rate, Jude manages a smile in return, wry and charmed. “You owe me, then. Something that’ll cost like…six months of life? I’ll send you a bill.”
She is straightforward in a way that cuts to the quick, and Jude isn’t sure how to contend with that. It’s what he’d loved in Noe from the start, though her forthright nature is louder and more sarcastic than this. It touches him. It terrifies him. He feels naked under her calm stare and he doesn’t even know her name. “Yeah…I guess I am.” Even his tone comes out rattled, shaken by her kind validation and the mirror it forces in front of his face. He lifts his newly bandaged hand, the fabric already darkening with blood - but not spreading too far, clearly successful in slowing the bleeding. “But then this isn’t nothing either. So thank you.”
Departing from the strangely affecting topic is a relief to him, and he shakes her hand gently - never the type to try for firmness. She seems to take care of that for him with the exuberant motion that brings his own arm along for the ride. “Really, always nomadic? But you must be my age.” Maybe he’s biased as someone who’s always belonged to a region, but it sounds awfully lonely. Dangerous even. “I was born and raised in Torchline but I just moved to Stormbreak recently. I don’t have any family though - cousins, I guess.” Or so Flora had declared them once. And his mom had called Remi and Ronin something like uncles, but Jude had bounced between parents so much it had never been more than sentiment. “Who are you looking for? Maybe I know them.”
She is straightforward in a way that cuts to the quick, and Jude isn’t sure how to contend with that. It’s what he’d loved in Noe from the start, though her forthright nature is louder and more sarcastic than this. It touches him. It terrifies him. He feels naked under her calm stare and he doesn’t even know her name. “Yeah…I guess I am.” Even his tone comes out rattled, shaken by her kind validation and the mirror it forces in front of his face. He lifts his newly bandaged hand, the fabric already darkening with blood - but not spreading too far, clearly successful in slowing the bleeding. “But then this isn’t nothing either. So thank you.”
Departing from the strangely affecting topic is a relief to him, and he shakes her hand gently - never the type to try for firmness. She seems to take care of that for him with the exuberant motion that brings his own arm along for the ride. “Really, always nomadic? But you must be my age.” Maybe he’s biased as someone who’s always belonged to a region, but it sounds awfully lonely. Dangerous even. “I was born and raised in Torchline but I just moved to Stormbreak recently. I don’t have any family though - cousins, I guess.” Or so Flora had declared them once. And his mom had called Remi and Ronin something like uncles, but Jude had bounced between parents so much it had never been more than sentiment. “Who are you looking for? Maybe I know them.”
I LEND EVERYONE MY EAR, BUT NOBODY MY HEART
I'D LIKE TO CHANGE THAT, BUT I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO START
I'D LIKE TO CHANGE THAT, BUT I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO START
