who we are and all that we're trying to be
The Sword missed the way Zuriel stared at Morgan, as if expecting a challenge – a very imperial, seditious set to her brow, waiting to be told to leave again, and then presumably, to refuse the action. When the Warden didn’t tell her to vacate the premises, the unicorn tilted her head vaguely, and then proceeded to stand very still, a protective element for her bonded, whether he required it or not.
The monolith noticed the smile and the tension in his spine eased, though still wary, still striving not to succumb to the series of circumstances bombarding, rampaging, and blasting at him from all sides. He thought about staring at the ground, about becoming a piece of earth underneath, a steadfast retreat from incoming barrages, but the comments remained pleasant, and a shuddering breath was relinquished from the hold in his lungs. So instead of slinking and falling and crumbling back into the floorboards, the beast rendered his gaze back upon her, polite, forthcoming, the tone regretful, never yearning to be a burden. “I apologize for any inconvenience I caused. Let me know if there is anything I can do in return.”
A nod about the rooms, indicating they’d been fine and adequate, and then a stunned contortion causing the briefest widening of his eyes. How to explain the need, the draw, of Halo? In all his lunacy? In all the delirium? In the way the sickness had pressed against his mind, lured and enticed, cajoled and tempted, until he fell apart in the snow, listening to ghosts? “In another world, I ruled a place very similar.” Summits upon summits, peaks upon peaks, a formidable monster at the top, wearing his icy crown and relentlessly piercing those who dared to mire their way into his threshold, his kingdom, his roots. “Perhaps I was looking for something familiar.” A place that had been home, no matter how damned his heart had been there.
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts
