who we are and all that we're trying to be
The scorch marks of vulnerability had already left their scars, damage done; his features turning back into their cold, nonchalant designation, reserved and sullen, morose and eerily defiant, his jaws clenching together as he began to move once more. He wasn’t sure if he cared about Adam strangely defending him, or that the apprehension quelling in his soul never seemed to go away, never alleviated, always some sort of strife chasing them down. He thought himself predictable, habitual, in a sense, when it came to the Shield. Perhaps it hadn’t been enough – and there was that familiar phrase again, echoing and bounding in his ears, in his heart, in his mind. How Safrin had told him he wasn’t really worthy of Amalia. How he’d always known that anyway. So the beast glanced away entirely, back into the frames of forests and groves, where they were supposed to chase down bones and he kept fighting for others that still seemed to think the worst. “I will speak to her,” was all he could say, unwinding, unfurling, steps a bit more savage, a bit more menacing.
Then, perhaps on the same idea as Adam (though he’d missed the forked tongue movement), the man shifted entirely: no longer human, but framed as a tiger, grey and striped, presuming his animal instincts would provide the perfect way of scouring the underbrush, glancing and sensing for things like since passed. Feline eyes passed over the other man quickly, a hint and nothing else, before maneuvering into the forest, lifting his nose to follow haphazard layers of scents.
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts
