He didn't expect her to stop for him, knowing that he wanted it and feared it in equal measure. He cared for her so deeply that he hurt them both with it, but he didn't know how to stop. When had a heart ever listened to reason? When had it ever heeded common sense? He had thought she wanted a little distance between them for the way he had failed her - the many ways, again and again, until the weight of it cracked the bridges between them and eroded the arching spans of love and trust to crumbled shadows of their former strength. Friendship, still, but without the snares and snarling thorns of any deeper bond.
It didn't make it hurt less, though as she looked at him from anxious, wounded eyes, her whole body tensed as if to run.
From him.
He didn't know what to say, not when his words so often broke what he tried to mend between them, but Isuma was not so bound or limited by the doubts and fears that hobbled two that were her family. The little gryphlet rubbed her head against his cheek and then launched herself, silent owl's wings beating swiftly across the distance to greet her big sister. She tried to land on the baker's shoulder, cuddling against her with the simple, joyful love in a heart far bigger than her diminutive size.
Her companion was still kneeling in the freshly-turned earth, studying Amalia's face and the conflict there, but after a moment he bowed his head, saying nothing more but sending a pulse of apology through the Attuned bond, regret wrapped in guilt and the sorrow for the pain he had caused her, and the way he had failed her in Safrin's shackles.
It didn't make it hurt less, though as she looked at him from anxious, wounded eyes, her whole body tensed as if to run.
From him.
He didn't know what to say, not when his words so often broke what he tried to mend between them, but Isuma was not so bound or limited by the doubts and fears that hobbled two that were her family. The little gryphlet rubbed her head against his cheek and then launched herself, silent owl's wings beating swiftly across the distance to greet her big sister. She tried to land on the baker's shoulder, cuddling against her with the simple, joyful love in a heart far bigger than her diminutive size.
Her companion was still kneeling in the freshly-turned earth, studying Amalia's face and the conflict there, but after a moment he bowed his head, saying nothing more but sending a pulse of apology through the Attuned bond, regret wrapped in guilt and the sorrow for the pain he had caused her, and the way he had failed her in Safrin's shackles.
