I come from the water

I saw the crosses of empty cathedrals whose prospects were hanging out in bars

He isn’t being sensitive with his jests to the Ascended, and nor does he intend on changing his tone as Nate’s own falls between something Sunjata knows far too well. That edge of a blade with one slip either way to ruin what was there. He can almost feel the tension in the air with it as Nate struggles, but he plays along. What else can be done? He won’t force Nate to say what’s on his mind, all he can do is sit there and try and get that bit of conversation to flow on Nate’s terms, and to be there to listen. And so he does exactly that, letting his steel gaze linger on Nate — a light squeeze to the Ascended’s leg once more — before he has a brow raising and a feline smirk crossing his face.

“That can be arranged.” He hums back easily into the joke, before he’s eating again. His schedule is clear for a day spent with Nate — and even if it wasn’t clear, he’d make it that way. Something about this morning feeling extra important, as if he absolutely couldn’t see himself leaving without him. And so the days plan becomes the Ascended, not like you’d find Sunjata complaining about it. Instead it simply just is, a comfortable span of time to have what he has while it lasts and to give it and give Nate his all.

He reaches for his coffee when Nate hears his words, and Sunjata’s half into a sip before he snorts and almost sends a wave of coffee over the side of the mug with the air from the exhale , before he takes a true sip and sets the cup down, giving Nate a playfully pained look. “Oh I don’t know. Chopping sounds incredibly hard.” He teases, whining slightly through his accented and rough tone, before steel eyes slip back toward Nate with a boyishly crooked smile. Never mind the fact that if there was one weapon Sunjata was intimately familiar with, it was daggers and knives. It’s evident in the way he uses the cutlery, the swift strokes of a knife slipping through the butter earlier and dropping it into the pot. It’s evident in the way his hands are calloused from the handles of Safrin’s daggers.

But there’s a whole other issue isn’t there? The Old Gods and the New Gods. And what did that mean for the life he had right now? What did it mean for the people like them that could live like this? What then?

He swallows down those thoughts as he does indeed begin to clean his plate, leaning back and shifting in the seat a bit, keeping his hand on Nate’s leg as he reaches for the coffee again to sip from before setting it down. His eyes find Nate again, to the bowl before the Ascended, and he reaches over with a fork to grab a rogue potato Nate hadn’t eaten yet, flashing him a wink before he eats it.

SUNJATA