Theea
and that was how i learned to live
when you can run but you can't hide
when you can run but you can't hide
I match his pace as best I can, two of my steps to one of his, the ground steady under me again the way it hasn’t been since the Fangs. It feels like walking out of winter and back into a morning that knows my name. Aria shifts in his arms, a small pocket of warmth folded in wool, and I can’t help the soft ache that comes with watching her breathe—like holding a candle cupped against the wind.
I keep catching his face when he thinks I'm not looking: the jaw set hard enough to cut stone, the the hard line of his brow weighted by what it cost us to get here. Then he looks down at the cub and the change is so simple—everything gentles, melting like a snowflake in a child's palm. The cold parts of me loosen, as if someone tilted a mirror to angle sunlight where I’d been standing in shade.
At the shrine I fall back a pace, letting the space belong to him. The pelt on the stone smells like iron and snow and the night we survived. His voice is rough honesty, the kind that doesn’t hide behind pretty words, and I stand still and let it work on me. I remember my own prayer, thin and shaking, the day I promised to be worth the chance I was given; I wish quietly for his steadiness, for the way he can set a thing down and call it true.
I slowly approach the shrine after him, and I leave perhaps a macabre offering: a piece of bloodied thread from my now-healed ribs. Not as large, but I hope an equal offering to the pelt. We have paid for the sacrifice of Aria's mother to survive, and through Aria, would continue.
If Damien glances my way, I meet him with a small, certain smile—nothing bright enough to pull the light off of what he’s doing, just enough to say: I’m here, even if things go wrong. Then I back up a few paces, and I wait with him, the way a person waits for sunrise—ready for revelation or for nothing at all, trusting that the world can be changed by either.
Frey, I silently prey, hear him like you hear me when I was kid. Please. Damien needs this. So does Aria.
Accepted receive +20 and roll with advantage at all shrines. Include this at the bottom of all shrine posts.
I keep catching his face when he thinks I'm not looking: the jaw set hard enough to cut stone, the the hard line of his brow weighted by what it cost us to get here. Then he looks down at the cub and the change is so simple—everything gentles, melting like a snowflake in a child's palm. The cold parts of me loosen, as if someone tilted a mirror to angle sunlight where I’d been standing in shade.
At the shrine I fall back a pace, letting the space belong to him. The pelt on the stone smells like iron and snow and the night we survived. His voice is rough honesty, the kind that doesn’t hide behind pretty words, and I stand still and let it work on me. I remember my own prayer, thin and shaking, the day I promised to be worth the chance I was given; I wish quietly for his steadiness, for the way he can set a thing down and call it true.
I slowly approach the shrine after him, and I leave perhaps a macabre offering: a piece of bloodied thread from my now-healed ribs. Not as large, but I hope an equal offering to the pelt. We have paid for the sacrifice of Aria's mother to survive, and through Aria, would continue.
If Damien glances my way, I meet him with a small, certain smile—nothing bright enough to pull the light off of what he’s doing, just enough to say: I’m here, even if things go wrong. Then I back up a few paces, and I wait with him, the way a person waits for sunrise—ready for revelation or for nothing at all, trusting that the world can be changed by either.
Frey, I silently prey, hear him like you hear me when I was kid. Please. Damien needs this. So does Aria.
Accepted receive +20 and roll with advantage at all shrines. Include this at the bottom of all shrine posts.
how to feel trapped in a tunnel
but come out the other side
but come out the other side
