I know you wanna save me but it's better if you don't
If Colt had thought him tense the last time she saw him, it’s nothing compared to the man making his way toward her now. The Refuge has taken something from him that no one else can see, and Vesper wears the absence like an injury he hasn’t yet figured out how to favour. His telepathy has gone quiet before, but only while shifted, when the world has rushed in to replace it through sharper hearing, richer scents, the tremble of the ground beneath hooves or paws. Here, there’s nothing waiting to fill the space. No minds brushing against his awareness, no emotions bleeding colour around words, no hidden current beneath the visible world.
He feels naked without it, though that word isn’t quite severe enough. Hobbled, perhaps, or shorn of something as precious and instinctive as sight. Every person he passes is suddenly a closed door, and every silence has become an uncertainty he can’t reach through. He hadn’t realized how much of himself lived in that extra sense until the Refuge cut it away, leaving him to navigate by expression and tone like everyone else. The effort has his shoulders held rigid beneath a dusty chambray shirt, while the muscle in his jaw feathers almost constantly around the sprig of peppermint bark caught between his teeth.
Only Colt could have gotten him to agree to this, but gods only know how long he’ll be able to bear it.
A coin moves restlessly through the fingers of one hand as he nears her rock, slipping over his knuckles and back into his palm before beginning again. He can see the cherries and the arrangement of her limbs, the hat and the feather tucked into its band, but none of it tells him what she’s thinking or how she feels about seeing him. Without the answer already waiting inside his skull, even the simple act of greeting her feels strangely precarious. Slowing a few paces away, he lifts his free hand with something almost wary in the motion. "Hey," he calls, the peppermint sharpening the drawl of it as the coin turns once more between his fingers.
He feels naked without it, though that word isn’t quite severe enough. Hobbled, perhaps, or shorn of something as precious and instinctive as sight. Every person he passes is suddenly a closed door, and every silence has become an uncertainty he can’t reach through. He hadn’t realized how much of himself lived in that extra sense until the Refuge cut it away, leaving him to navigate by expression and tone like everyone else. The effort has his shoulders held rigid beneath a dusty chambray shirt, while the muscle in his jaw feathers almost constantly around the sprig of peppermint bark caught between his teeth.
Only Colt could have gotten him to agree to this, but gods only know how long he’ll be able to bear it.
A coin moves restlessly through the fingers of one hand as he nears her rock, slipping over his knuckles and back into his palm before beginning again. He can see the cherries and the arrangement of her limbs, the hat and the feather tucked into its band, but none of it tells him what she’s thinking or how she feels about seeing him. Without the answer already waiting inside his skull, even the simple act of greeting her feels strangely precarious. Slowing a few paces away, he lifts his free hand with something almost wary in the motion. "Hey," he calls, the peppermint sharpening the drawl of it as the coin turns once more between his fingers.
Vesper
'cause a heavy heart is hard to keep afloat
☆ has a pale star tattoo beneath his left eye, and freckle-sized constellations move across his skin
☽ hair changes from bleached blonde to brown
☆ telepathic: Sunlit Shadows | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 60ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
☽ hair changes from bleached blonde to brown
☆ telepathic: Sunlit Shadows | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 60ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
