Everest
Everest’s brows lift slightly at the mention of Dygra, the idea slotting into place with a soft, audible click as his mind reconfigures around it. He had not considered Isla’s nature as an Ancient as a variable in any of this, and the oversight shows briefly on his face before he nods, slow and thoughtful. Chaos as a by-product is not unfamiliar to him in theory, even if it is deeply unfamiliar in practice, and the explanation settles something that had been tugging uncomfortably at the edge of his confusion.
"That...makes sense," he says quietly, glancing at her as if to confirm he has understood correctly. The reassurance about the healing fountain and the clinic follows close behind, and with it comes a subtle easing of the tension he has been holding in his shoulders, the sense that at least some of the unknowns have softer edges than he first feared.
When she leans in, when her lips brush his shoulder and her warmth presses close, he slips an arm around her (almost) without thinking, drawing her in until she rests securely against his side. He does not answer her immediately as the question she has asked is not one he will rush, not because he doubts the answer but because he respects it too much to give anything less than his full consideration. His thoughts fan outward, touching on schedules and sleep and finances and noise and responsibility, all the small, practical worries that crowd his mind when the future shifts shape so abruptly, and yet beneath all of that there is no clear refusal, no internal alarm insisting this is wrong. There is only fear, familiar and heavy, but fear alone is not the same thing as unwillingness. He turns slightly toward her at last, nodding once, decisively. "I do," he says, voice steady despite everything. "I want to make it work. With you."
His gaze dips then, drawn without quite meaning to toward her stomach as if expecting some visible sign of the enormity they are discussing, and he almost smiles at himself before lifting his eyes back to hers. The expression that settles there is tentative but sincere, something almost boyish softening his features as he exhales a slow breath. "I think we’re going to have a lot of reading to do."
"That...makes sense," he says quietly, glancing at her as if to confirm he has understood correctly. The reassurance about the healing fountain and the clinic follows close behind, and with it comes a subtle easing of the tension he has been holding in his shoulders, the sense that at least some of the unknowns have softer edges than he first feared.
When she leans in, when her lips brush his shoulder and her warmth presses close, he slips an arm around her (almost) without thinking, drawing her in until she rests securely against his side. He does not answer her immediately as the question she has asked is not one he will rush, not because he doubts the answer but because he respects it too much to give anything less than his full consideration. His thoughts fan outward, touching on schedules and sleep and finances and noise and responsibility, all the small, practical worries that crowd his mind when the future shifts shape so abruptly, and yet beneath all of that there is no clear refusal, no internal alarm insisting this is wrong. There is only fear, familiar and heavy, but fear alone is not the same thing as unwillingness. He turns slightly toward her at last, nodding once, decisively. "I do," he says, voice steady despite everything. "I want to make it work. With you."
His gaze dips then, drawn without quite meaning to toward her stomach as if expecting some visible sign of the enormity they are discussing, and he almost smiles at himself before lifting his eyes back to hers. The expression that settles there is tentative but sincere, something almost boyish softening his features as he exhales a slow breath. "I think we’re going to have a lot of reading to do."
I was a dead man walking,
with bloodshot eyes—right place, wrong time.
with bloodshot eyes—right place, wrong time.
