Reflected Shadows
Jigano Silversmith
the Sage
Provost of the Loreseekers Soul Shepherd
Portal Guardian
Age: 36 | Height: 6'2" | Race: Attuned x Abandoned | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 12 - Strg: 30 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 38 - Luck: 42 - Int:
ISUMA - Mythical - Griffin (Venomous)
Played by: Cirago Offline
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Posts: 3,914 | Total: 7,219
MP: 10170
#1
He returned the staff to Amalia gravely, then watched as she handed it immediately to Kiada. He tilted his head to the side but held his misgivings within. The weapon was the baker's to distribute as she pleased, and she had only recently begun to learn the intricacies of fighting as an integrated group. His advice, he suspected, would either be unwelcome... or untrusted. Hopefully not by her, she who he loved so deeply, but there were others who would find the worst in his decisions.

They always did.

Instead he turned away from Kiada, touching Amalia's arm lightly and indicating Ronin's office. He hoped the guildleader wouldn't mind, but he had a gift for the baker that he hoped she would find useful for the days (the Night) to come.

"Amalia, a moment please," he murmured. "I have something else for you." Not merely the return of her staff but something else. Not a light in the dark, but a window into it. Or so he hoped it would be, something to connect them when the world tried to tear them apart.
Amalia Chandrakant
the Archangel
Baker

Age: 29 | Height: 5'6 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Stormbreak
Level: 5 - Strg: 49 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 52 - Luck: 49 - Int:
JYOTI - Mythical - Starwhale (Humpback)
Played by: shark Offline
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Posts: 3,098 | Total: 4,577
MP: 2580
#2
Amalia
she wants the silence but fears the solitude
she wants to be alone and together with you
She follows Jigano dutifully, though as the door to the office slides shut behind her she is quick to throw her arms around him, relief at his safety palpable through their shared Attuned bond. "I was so worried!" Amalia exclaims softly, her face pressed against the tall bard's neck. "We didn't know if you would follow, or if you'd wind up in the mountains-"

Pulling back, the baker pushes a stray lock of hair behind her ear, looking down abashedly at the office floor. "I'm sorry. I... I know I wasn't a good team member, in the Library. It was just hard to focus with Jyo so upset. I'd... I'd never experienced her like that before." A shiver: she hopes to never again, though she knows that the whale's feelings of unease will return when they inevitably go down to the depths once more.
she ran to the lighthouse, hoped that it would help her see
she saw that the lighthouse had been washed out to sea
Jigano Silversmith
the Sage
Provost of the Loreseekers Soul Shepherd
Portal Guardian
Age: 36 | Height: 6'2" | Race: Attuned x Abandoned | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 12 - Strg: 30 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 38 - Luck: 42 - Int:
ISUMA - Mythical - Griffin (Venomous)
Played by: Cirago Offline
Change author:
Posts: 3,914 | Total: 7,219
MP: 10170
#3
He hadn't expected the hug, but he returned it after a moment of hesitant surprise, wrapping his arms around the slim baker and holding her tightly for a few moments to reassure himself that she was really safe. Her relief was a balm on the sharp edges of his heart, soothing and smoothing them down as he rested his cheek on her hair. "I was worried, too," he admitted, ignoring the roughness of emotion in his voice as he tried to clear his throat and start again. "We didn't know where you had disappeared to, but we all tried to go after you together... I still don't know how we got separated." That had been a frightening moment, stepping out of the Mathair into an armed camp of Fae with only Zuriel at his side, and no sign of the others.

He let he go reluctantly, if only because she had picked up a recent bad habit of disappearing on him when he did. Relief faded to a grave solemnity in his eyes as she apologized. "It is good that you recognize that," Jigano said cautiously, choosing his words carefully. Amalia was right, she had deliberately abandoned her teammates to an unknown situation when she had the choice to do otherwise. Even hearing that Jyoti had been upset was only a partial reason for having done so. "It's how we learn. When I started exploring the starfallen ruins with my... team... we made some bad choices, too. As long as everyone survives them, they're only lessons. But sometimes bad things happen in situations like that, things we don't expect... and people can die, Ama, when they get separated from the group." Jenny had gone off on her own, too, and that had been the last time he'd seen her alive. "I don't want you to have to learn that lesson personally." He gave her a sad smile, letting her feel the lingering pulse of loss and guilt in his heart through the bond. "I've already learned it enough for both of us. Please stay with us the next time we go down there. We'll check each book and place in turn - together."
Amalia Chandrakant
the Archangel
Baker

Age: 29 | Height: 5'6 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Stormbreak
Level: 5 - Strg: 49 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 52 - Luck: 49 - Int:
JYOTI - Mythical - Starwhale (Humpback)
Played by: shark Offline
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#4
Amalia
she wants the silence but fears the solitude
she wants to be alone and together with you
Amalia's expression steadily falters as she listens to Jigano's admonishments, whatever smile had lingered on her list thoroughly gone by the end. Wrapping her arms around herself, the Shield looks down to a spot on his chest, unable to meet the piercing blue eyes. She hadn't meant to disappear - not the second time, with the book - but she should have known that it might happen, should have been smarter, safer.

People can die, Ama.

Dark eyes glance briefly at the Bard with an expression that speaks of guilt and wounds. Is he right? Had her actions been so risky that the others might not have survived? Thick white fur has sprouted over her neck, a sure sign of her insecurity, her failing mood. She hadn't known the danger to be so great, had thought they would be okay. "I... I thought you could hold your own," she whispers weakly, a small protest with no spine behind it. I thought you thought that I could, too. It aches, to know he has so little faith in her, and the hands that wrap around her arms clench tight enough to leave red marks on her skin.
she ran to the lighthouse, hoped that it would help her see
she saw that the lighthouse had been washed out to sea
Jigano Silversmith
the Sage
Provost of the Loreseekers Soul Shepherd
Portal Guardian
Age: 36 | Height: 6'2" | Race: Attuned x Abandoned | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 12 - Strg: 30 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 38 - Luck: 42 - Int:
ISUMA - Mythical - Griffin (Venomous)
Played by: Cirago Offline
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Posts: 3,914 | Total: 7,219
MP: 10170
#5
He wanted to sigh, to hug her again as she raised her leopard side against his words, as averse to criticism as Sam could be. Young and inexperienced, he could understand why she hadn’t considered the dangers inherent in that unknown place. But she wasn’t as inexperienced as she had once been. She had walked among the Fae, delved beneath the Spire, been trapped in the cave with him. She knew of dangers aplenty, but no one had ever died on those ventures. Gods willing, no one ever would…

But the gods could only do so much if they didn’t take their own precautions.

”Hold our own against what?” he asked gently. ”A magic that vanished people where they stood and took them… where? The bottom of a lake? The top of a frozen mountain? The jaws of the LongNight monsters?” He saw her fingers leaving red marks on her skin and he reached out without thinking to try and rest his fingers atop hers, to give her something else to hold on to. ”I didn’t know what happened. That was the problem, and the risk. In hindsight it was mostly harmless. But at the time there was no way of being certain that things would turn out alright.” And he still had a bandage wrapped around his calf beneath his pants, from where an angry book bigger than he was had latched onto him. If the others had been gone in books and rooms and who-knew-where when that had attacked him, would he have been able to handle it on his own?

”I know what you’re capable of,” he said gently, ”or at least… I thought I did. Every time I blink you’ve grown stronger.” He sent a pulse of warm affection to her, tinged with awe for the new form she had found. ”But some dangers are better fought together. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be alone when I faced that shark book! Things like that are why I worry when we split up when we don’t need to.”
Amalia Chandrakant
the Archangel
Baker

Age: 29 | Height: 5'6 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Stormbreak
Level: 5 - Strg: 49 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 52 - Luck: 49 - Int:
JYOTI - Mythical - Starwhale (Humpback)
Played by: shark Offline
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Posts: 3,098 | Total: 4,577
MP: 2580
#6
Amalia
she wants the silence but fears the solitude
she wants to be alone and together with you
She pulls away as he reaches for her, tightening further into herself. He's right, of course he is: she has a history of running ahead and risking life and limb. The Underground, the Greatwood, the Perch, the Spire. Every time she let her emotions get the better of her. Every time it was only through luck that she and her group escaped.

But they did escape, every time. She has grown stronger, she has overcome, and despite his words to the contrary the Shield feels that Jigano doesn't see it. To him she has always been younger, weaker, someone to be taught and chided and held. A child, she feels like a scolded child, like she did the day she tried to climb the tallest tree and fell.

She does not feel his pulse of affection; she has shut herself off too thoroughly, already uneasy and unhappy with the swarming memories of LongNights past. "You didn't need me for that," she murmurs, dark eyes still downcast. "All I do is get in the way, or get captured, or let you down, so maybe... maybe I just won't come, next time."
she ran to the lighthouse, hoped that it would help her see
she saw that the lighthouse had been washed out to sea
Jigano Silversmith
the Sage
Provost of the Loreseekers Soul Shepherd
Portal Guardian
Age: 36 | Height: 6'2" | Race: Attuned x Abandoned | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 12 - Strg: 30 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 38 - Luck: 42 - Int:
ISUMA - Mythical - Griffin (Venomous)
Played by: Cirago Offline
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Posts: 3,914 | Total: 7,219
MP: 10170
#7
He hesitated as she pulled away, surprised and stung at the rejection for a moment, but only for that long. Amalia had always been one to pull away from comfort, to deny herself the forgiveness and patience she gave to others, and he had mistaken her new strength as a change in that. He had been badly frightened by what had happened in the Library - afraid of people being lost, of trust taken too far and challenges that were beyond any one of them alone. He had let that fear come out in patronizing words and a distance that he tried to build to protect himself from that chance of loss that he had so recently worried over.

It was who he was.

But it was not who he wanted to be.

For once he did not respect personal space or her pulling away. She would have to move farther than that as he stepped forward deliberately to try and enfold her in a hug - a gentle thing, but a secure one if she let him put his arms around her.

"Amalia Chandrakant, I will always need you," he whispered fiercely. "I am terrible about showing it, and I am sorry for that, but I rely on you for so much more than I have any right to." He swallowed hard, letting his ears shift from human to fox, an intimacy he couldn't explain but still a display of trust and affection as he filled the Attuned bond between them with the desperate, broken love he had for the baker who had become a precious sister.

"'All you do' is give me strength and light and hope. You make me better and I am terrified of losing you, as I have lost others. I'm terrified of losing anyone else, but you and Rory most of all." And that was the problem, wasn't it? He took so much from her, and gave nothing back. Others were endlessly supportive, endlessly trusting, endlessly patient, and he? He was the critical one, the one who clung so tightly to what he loved that it slipped from his hands because he didn't know how to let go.

If he had even been allowed to hold her at all he would step back then, forcing his hands not to shake as he folded them into the protection of his wide sleeves. "But I give you only sharp edges and harsh words," he said softly, his thoughts slipping from his tongue like pebbles in a still pond, sending ripples across his psyche as he looked at her with a fox's blue eyes. "And you have so much more and better than that now. You deserve so much better." Deimos and Kiada and Remi and Ronin... all of the Settlement, really, who treated their Shield with awe and respect. "If you truly don't wish to accompany me anymore, I would understand," he said, the painful words pulled from his heart and laid at her feet without masks or any attempt to hide what they cost him in pain and fear that she would choose exactly that. "But... Amalia, you will always be welcome at my side. In this world, or any other."
Amalia Chandrakant
the Archangel
Baker

Age: 29 | Height: 5'6 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Stormbreak
Level: 5 - Strg: 49 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 52 - Luck: 49 - Int:
JYOTI - Mythical - Starwhale (Humpback)
Played by: shark Offline
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Posts: 3,098 | Total: 4,577
MP: 2580
#8
Amalia
she wants the silence but fears the solitude
she wants to be alone and together with you
She lets him hold her, if only because she does not have the will to fight. Arms still clenched around himself Amalia stands in his embrace, stiff, stoic, uncharacteristically so, biting her lip to hold back the tide of anger and pain so suddenly on the surface. Does he rely on her? Does she give him hope? And if so, why does it always feel as though he is left without anything beneath her? That she is not - has never been - enough?

Jigano steps away at last, and while the baker remains withdrawn a part of her aches for the affection. Beneath her coat a leopard's tail emerges, coiled tightly around her leg. "You're always terrified," Amalia whispers, her eyes still downcast, her expression bleak. "You're always scared- of me, for me. That I hate you. That I'm mad at you. That I'm going to get hurt." Swallowing hard, she shakes her head, a lock of gold hair falling loose to hang over her face. "And if I... if I try to say something, you just..."

Trailing off, Amalia takes a deep breath, trying to steady her rising unhappiness. How can she say what is on her mind, the way she sometimes feels small when he speaks to her, as though she has never been anything other than a child in his eyes? And what right does she have to her discontent, when he is being nothing but kind: she deserves the scoldings, deserves to be told. She has failed and failed and failed, and every time she thinks she has a foothold on success it slips back out from beneath her feet.

"I'm sorry, Jigano," the Shield of Safrin says softly, flatly, still refusing to meet his eyes. "I will try to be better."
she ran to the lighthouse, hoped that it would help her see
she saw that the lighthouse had been washed out to sea
Jigano Silversmith
the Sage
Provost of the Loreseekers Soul Shepherd
Portal Guardian
Age: 36 | Height: 6'2" | Race: Attuned x Abandoned | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 12 - Strg: 30 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 38 - Luck: 42 - Int:
ISUMA - Mythical - Griffin (Venomous)
Played by: Cirago Offline
Change author:
Posts: 3,914 | Total: 7,219
MP: 10170
#9
She was ice and stone in his arms, and she had every right to be. He had done this, had made her feel as though she couldn't reach out to him. He had done it again and again and again. Was this to be the time when she finally stopped trying? It would be only what he deserved, if so. She was Safrin's Shield now, she had Deimos and Kiada, a real family, and she didn't need him anymore, with all his mistakes and complications and neediness. He was a mess of sharp edges and poorly-stitched puzzle pieces, good intentions that broke in waves against the shore of his fear and guilt, and every time he thought he had finally found his way to higher ground he slid right back into his old, bad habits.

Amalia was not perfect, but she was so much better than him at being what people wanted. Not effortlessly, no, but instinctively. She was kind where he was pushy, humble where he was arrogant, gentle where he was brusque, and faithful where he was filled with doubts. He wanted so desperately to protect that, to be protected, but in so doing he only pushed her further away.

He didn't know how not to. He had spent too long pushing people away. Years, knowing that he didn't deserve to be loved or protected. Since coming to Caido he had learned the lie of that; he did deserve love, if only because those he had given his heart to believed that he did. He trusted them where he couldn't trust himself. But perhaps because he didn't trust himself he wasn't able to fully trust anyone else, either, no matter how dearly he loved them.

She didn't look at him, but she spoke words of truth so sharp that he flinched. He hadn't realized that he had been so transparent, but she wasn't wrong. He lived a life built on fear - not just for her, but for Rory as well, and Kiada and Sam, Melita and Remi... He bowed his head in guilty acknowledgment but as she trailed off he caught himself at the wounded silence that followed. It dug into his chest, raw and aching, and her apology was too much.

She did not want to be held, so instead he knelt before her, taking his knees in a smooth motion as he looked up to those downcast eyes, dark as the hours before dawn when the stars were at their most brilliant. "No," he said quietly but firmly. "This isn't your burden to bear. I am afraid, and that is not your fault. I am bound by my past and I... I don't know how to free myself from it." It was not the admission he wanted to make, but how was he different than anyone else, really? He was far from the only one with a tragic history. Amalia had her own portion of loss and pain that she had survived, and she didn't lash out as he did. No, this was his problem, not hers. "But that is on me, not you. You are beautiful and bold and strong, and I... I have cast too much shade over your light. Over and over again." Why did he always have to make her feel so small? She was so much greater than he would ever be, and he couldn't help but wonder at how much higher she would already be flying if he hadn't been in her life, dragging her down.

He took a shaking breath and let his own head fall, sitting back on his heels as he did so. "Tell me, Ama, please. What do I do, when you try to say something?" He needed to hear it. Not guess, not assume, but to actually hear it. For once, he needed to listen and let someone else speak.
Amalia Chandrakant
the Archangel
Baker

Age: 29 | Height: 5'6 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Stormbreak
Level: 5 - Strg: 49 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 52 - Luck: 49 - Int:
JYOTI - Mythical - Starwhale (Humpback)
Played by: shark Offline
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Posts: 3,098 | Total: 4,577
MP: 2580
#10
Amalia
she wants the silence but fears the solitude
she wants to be alone and together with you
Once again Amalia feels like a child in his eyes, wincing as he kneels down the same way she might to speak to Aoife, or any of the children who frequent her shop. Part of her knows it isn't what he means, but in her state of hurt and her rising resentments the baker is struggling to hold onto that part, to keep from being swallowed whole by her aching insecurities.

She knows that he is fragile, that he has hurt and been hurt in the past. That he is older, and wiser, and more experienced; that she is, in fact, a child. It's the reason why she bit back her feelings, held her tongue a million times and simply apologized again and again, told him that she wasn't angry, wasn't struggling, wasn't hurt. It would be so easy to do it again, to keep their dynamic as it is. It would be simpler, and safer, perhaps, and Amalia does not want to lose anyone else.

Curling her toes unhappily, the baker sighs and turns away, a flash of ire and guilt and pain slicing across her angular face. Every kind word is another slap, another reminder that she is the one treating his affection as though it is cruel. What is wrong with her, that she cannot be happy, content with the things he says and free of her anxious, nagging doubts?

Swallowing down the lump in her throat, Amalia shakes her head. "It feels like... like you don't listen to me. Or don't talk to me. Or..." How to explain it? Perhaps if she used the Attuned bond it would make some sense, but the Shield has closed herself off entirely. "Every time I try to really talk, you just... apologize, or, or tell me how great I am, and how everything is your fault, and I just... it makes me feel like if I disagree with you, or get upset, or anything, I'm just being a terrible person for making you feel bad, and I don't want you to just apologize, you can talk to me, I can-"

Abruptly she stops, tears in her eyes, her dark gaze flinty with anger and hurt as they finally meet his blue.
she ran to the lighthouse, hoped that it would help her see
she saw that the lighthouse had been washed out to sea
Jigano Silversmith
the Sage
Provost of the Loreseekers Soul Shepherd
Portal Guardian
Age: 36 | Height: 6'2" | Race: Attuned x Abandoned | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 12 - Strg: 30 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 38 - Luck: 42 - Int:
ISUMA - Mythical - Griffin (Venomous)
Played by: Cirago Offline
Change author:
Posts: 3,914 | Total: 7,219
MP: 10170
#11
Even kneeling she turned away from him, taking herself out of his reach while his heart ached against how fragile their bond had become. His fault, that distance between them. He, who had worn a thousand masks, could have maybe been what she needed him to be, if only he had pretended to be that man. Instead he had shown her the man behind the masks - the broken bard, the oracle of ghosts - and that man... had not been enough. He bowed his head, white hair falling forward as he closed his eyes and listened to her words, burning them into his memory.

It was quite literally the least he could do. Something he had never managed to do for her before, from what she said next.

His breath caught in his throat at the feelings she revealed. Hidden, festering things. Truths that coiled and gnawed at a heart. Remi had said something similar, once, a year and more past, and he had thought he had learned something from the alchemist then. Perhaps he had... but only where it came to the young man who would become a manticore. For Amalia - and Sam, he realized guiltily - he had been so desperate to keep their approval, to bandage the cracks in the bonds between them, that he had tried to paper over any real dissent.

Perhaps he was not entirely without reason; when he disagreed with Sam the bookmaker went around telling people that Jigano hated him. But Amalia... Amalia wasn't like that. She was stronger than that... and more fragile, in some ways.

He exhaled slowly as she cut herself off, his white ears back flat with distress, but he raised his head to look at her and meet the anger in her eyes. "I..." he cut himself off before he could apologize again, scrunching his tunic in his lap with his hands before forcing himself to relax them and smooth out the wrinkles. "Much of that is truth, though. I do think you're an incredible person. I wish I could show you what you are through my eyes. And things are usually my fault. I am too critical, too quick to judge. Too quick to assume that because I am older and have lived through nightmares and violence and death that I am at fault because I should be wiser and kinder and more experienced." He sighed, giving a small shake of his head as he looked up at her solemnly. "I should be... but I'm not. I try to be, but I fail far too often. And... you are right." The words felt stranger than they should have, but his experiences with Remi had opened a door. Only a crack, it was true, but enough that he could admit, however reluctantly, what the alchemist had taught him. "I am far too used to shouldering all the blame when things don't work out right. I am selfish with it, hoarding it. I don't want to share it with people I love or like."

He shifted, settling onto the floor in a seated position rather than a kneeling one. He was still looking up at the baker, but no longer as a penitent supplicant. His gaze was steady, but there was fear in the ring of white around his fox's eyes as he watched her. "Truth, Amalia? I am afraid to shift any of it to you. If I criticize you at all, or explain why I'm upset with you, you crumble. You apologize to me, tell me how terrible you are, try to take all the fault on yourself... and then threaten to leave me." He was very much aware of the way he echoed her words, and it might have been funny if it didn't hurt so much. Still, his voice was low, quiet but tinged with the the worry and wariness of his fears. "You and I... we're too much alike. there isn't enough blame and punishment to go around for us both to take all of it upon ourselves."

She had asked for him to talk to her as an equal, and so he was, but still he sat tense and watchful, praying silently to Safrin that he was doing the right thing.
Amalia Chandrakant
the Archangel
Baker

Age: 29 | Height: 5'6 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Stormbreak
Level: 5 - Strg: 49 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 52 - Luck: 49 - Int:
JYOTI - Mythical - Starwhale (Humpback)
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Posts: 3,098 | Total: 4,577
MP: 2580
#12
Amalia
she wants the silence but fears the solitude
she wants to be alone and together with you
He begins to explain himself, more of the same, the baker still stoic in her armor of hurt. Wreathed, displeased, hurt and afraid, it is easier to pull up armor and defenses, to hide from the onslaught of sharp knives and soft words. He is so quick to place the blame on himself, to dull her ability to say anything in protest, for what kind of monster would she be to agree with the cruel words he is laying upon himself? It puts her back in the position of the villain, a position she cannot bear to stand in, too scared of the shadows clawing at her heart.

But then he finally tells her the truth, and oh, if the pain isn't a thousand times worse. Straightening her spine the baker listens, willing herself to remain impassive, to keep his blue eyes locked in her black. She had wanted this, asked for it, she must not flinch away now. She is fragile, she is bad at communicating, she does crumble under a simple critique. But she is trying - trying - to be better, has always, always, tried.

But at the same time... "When?" she questions softly, claws wrapping once more around her arms. "When did I threaten to leave you?" Had she ever said such a thing, ever done anything other than offer him friendship, give him reassurance and support? She's believed in him, followed him, stood by his side. Only now, after too long and too much and too often failing has she suggested perhaps he should go on without her. Not that she would leave, but that he would be stronger without her around his neck.
she ran to the lighthouse, hoped that it would help her see
she saw that the lighthouse had been washed out to sea
Jigano Silversmith
the Sage
Provost of the Loreseekers Soul Shepherd
Portal Guardian
Age: 36 | Height: 6'2" | Race: Attuned x Abandoned | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 12 - Strg: 30 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 38 - Luck: 42 - Int:
ISUMA - Mythical - Griffin (Venomous)
Played by: Cirago Offline
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Posts: 3,914 | Total: 7,219
MP: 10170
#13
She gave him nothing, no hint of whether what he said was too much or too little, too harsh or too coddling. Always, it seemed, people wanted explanations from him, but never were they enough. Not for Kiada. Not for Deimos. Not for Amalia. Still, he tried to do what she had asked of him, tried to talk to her, to put his feelings into words, to lay his heart bare upon the cold floor for her to dissect and find the parts that were salvageable, if any.

And of all he said, it was one thing she latched onto, and he didn't know whether to laugh or cry as he swallowed past the lump in his throat as he watched her holding herself as if she would fall apart if she did not... and she had pulled away from him twice now, enough that he was afraid to press further, lest he finally break all that lay between them in his desperation to mend it.

He could have apologized. Could have waved it away as a slip of his tongue, poetic license, a hunch based on implication. Taken it all back onto himself, as she accused him - rightfully - of doing too often, of treating her too much like a child and not like the adult that she was.

"Just now," he said instead, meeting her eyes. He had burned her words into his memory, and they remained there, still smoking-fresh and clear as day. " 'Maybe I just won't come, next time.' After I had already said we would go back together... what am I supposed to think, except that you don't want to go back with me? Not to punish me, I know that, but from your own guilt. I... shouldn't have assumed we would go back together," he admitted, voice low as he looked away. "I just... I shouldn't have assumed." He'd never thought they wouldn't go back together. The curious librarian, the intrepid Loreseeker, the brave baker, and he at her side... of course they'd explore a magical library together.

Unless, of course, they didn't. He wrapped an arm loosely around his knee, not holding himself as she did, tightly and as if he would break, but that was only because he knew she would only feel guiltier if he did, not because he didn't want to.
Amalia Chandrakant
the Archangel
Baker

Age: 29 | Height: 5'6 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Stormbreak
Level: 5 - Strg: 49 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 52 - Luck: 49 - Int:
JYOTI - Mythical - Starwhale (Humpback)
Played by: shark Offline
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Posts: 3,098 | Total: 4,577
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#14
Amalia
she wants the silence but fears the solitude
she wants to be alone and together with you
"Because you treated me like a child!" Amalia exclaims, anger and aggravation suddenly bursting out from the Shield, unchecked and wounded lashes of flame. Her eyes are sharp, flint and steel and searing coals as she looks down at him, fists now clenched tight at her sides. "And I never said I would leave you!" How dare he twist her words when she has tried for honesty, when all she wants is a conversation, to be treated like a peer.

Or maybe, just a little, she wants a fight. Maybe she's been holding things in for too long, weeks and months of small resentments, a hundred things unsaid. "I have never left you, Jigano. Not when you bit me, or when you made me feel small for my anger at the outlanders, or when you disappeared for weeks - weeks - after being king for a day!" She isn't shouting, but the inflection is there. When has she ever betrayed him? Ever given him less than her all?

How, how, is it still not enough?

Her jaw feathers as he looks away, wanting both to hug and shake him, to break down and crumble just like he said. Just like he rightly accused her of. Weak, you're weak.

Well, not tonight. Now she is angry, a rare and wild and rather embarrassing thing, which she will certainly regret in retrospect. But for now? For now, she burns. "You- you want everyone to like you, but sometimes... sometimes you just make me feel small."
she ran to the lighthouse, hoped that it would help her see
she saw that the lighthouse had been washed out to sea


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