DAMIEN
I know it's been a long time coming
I'm angry and I know that's weak
I'm angry and I know that's weak
Damien listened close, the edge of his jaw working as if he were chewing on her words. Alys’ soft confession hit something in him, not sharp enough to wound but deep enough to find purchase. He didn’t look away when she spoke of being Abandoned, of growing up with the weight of scorn pressed into her bones. Instead, his gaze stayed on her, steady as an ax sunk into a log. And though his expression hardly shifted, his emotions did—faint threads of recognition, a raw little thrum of agreement. Not with her conclusion, but with that old hunger to spit in the gods’ faces and take life on your own terms.
When she described Frey, his brows drew together. Real. Not cold, not lofty, not dripping with the smug disdain of a thing set above mortals. Real. He felt his shoulders loosen by a fraction, and there was a flicker of something softer in him: not quite belief, not quite comfort, but a hard-won willingness to imagine it might be so. That maybe they weren’t all stone-faced judges looking down on the lot of them.
“That’s not what I expected to hear,” he admitted finally, voice low and rough. “I’ve always pictured them like kings in their halls—gold dripping from their hands, too high up to see much of anything below.” His mouth pressed thin, but a breath of rueful laughter escaped him. “You make it sound like they walk closer to the ground than I thought.”
His eyes drifted down to the black fox fur in her hands, to the garment slowly taking shape beneath her deft fingers. A strange little pang hit him—pride, maybe, though he’d done nothing more than trade her the pelts. Pride all the same, at seeing the rough skin of an animal he’d tracked and killed turned into something new, something more. “That’ll be a fine mantle,” he said quietly, almost to himself. His eyes lifted again, a slant of humor curling one corner of his mouth. “You need an extra set of hands with it? I don’t sew worth a damn, but I can hold things steady.”
The offer was casual, unassuming, but the undercurrent of his emotions told a fuller story: a flicker of wanting to be useful, to linger in the company a little longer, and—beneath that—a quieter, lonelier note, the kind that asks for connection without ever saying so aloud.
When she described Frey, his brows drew together. Real. Not cold, not lofty, not dripping with the smug disdain of a thing set above mortals. Real. He felt his shoulders loosen by a fraction, and there was a flicker of something softer in him: not quite belief, not quite comfort, but a hard-won willingness to imagine it might be so. That maybe they weren’t all stone-faced judges looking down on the lot of them.
“That’s not what I expected to hear,” he admitted finally, voice low and rough. “I’ve always pictured them like kings in their halls—gold dripping from their hands, too high up to see much of anything below.” His mouth pressed thin, but a breath of rueful laughter escaped him. “You make it sound like they walk closer to the ground than I thought.”
His eyes drifted down to the black fox fur in her hands, to the garment slowly taking shape beneath her deft fingers. A strange little pang hit him—pride, maybe, though he’d done nothing more than trade her the pelts. Pride all the same, at seeing the rough skin of an animal he’d tracked and killed turned into something new, something more. “That’ll be a fine mantle,” he said quietly, almost to himself. His eyes lifted again, a slant of humor curling one corner of his mouth. “You need an extra set of hands with it? I don’t sew worth a damn, but I can hold things steady.”
The offer was casual, unassuming, but the undercurrent of his emotions told a fuller story: a flicker of wanting to be useful, to linger in the company a little longer, and—beneath that—a quieter, lonelier note, the kind that asks for connection without ever saying so aloud.
And I'm longing out that open window
For whatever it is I seek
For whatever it is I seek
