MAEA
She'd expected him to back away, to shake his head or perhaps just ignore the offer. So she's almost as surprised as he when he accepts it, but pull him in all the same. Her arms rested lightly around his shoulders, cheek leaning against his... and just stayed there. Sharing what little warmth she had in body and soul, with no thought of more. This was the kind of hug she was used to, the one where thoughts and emotions played bigger part than the body. In truth, she rather preferred it like this. Far less complicated.
Listening with quiet attention to his tale, she noticed how his voice changed. The accent thickened, and there was a softening to the rumble as Lusea's name was mentioned. He'd mentioned her before, but now Maea actually understood how big a piece of him this twice-dead woman had been. Something good in an ocean of bad, a light in his darkness... and now that she was gone? She shuddered to think of it, knowing the loss of kin all too well. Indeed she understood the significance of the decorations within the bar too, perhaps more so than the name. Bronze and blue, water and flame, a quiet homage to a love he had not allowed die. Because it had been true? At the very least, far different from what he now shared with Phoebe.
If his mentioning of being a notorious killer bothered her, she made no show of it. Perhaps it was just a little too distant to her own world to fully register; they'd not seen war for so very long, and the idea of man killing man was utterly rare in a region where base survival was proof enough of ones mettle. Settling disputes was done over a keg of ale in the Rathskeller, perhaps with a fist fight to follow.
"What a rebellious son," she commented, fingers absently playing with the curls of his hair, at the back of his neck. "Well earned, I hope it drove him insane wondering who the informant was." She took a savage pleasure in imagining it, and her voice reflected the sentiment; fierce protective loyalty towards this new friend, who was worming his way into her heart with alarming ease.
At his offer to help her train, she smiled wider. "I might just take you up on that. I did ask Deimos for things I could do on my own, but I'm not sure I'd know what weapons to pick just yet... let alone swing them."
Listening with quiet attention to his tale, she noticed how his voice changed. The accent thickened, and there was a softening to the rumble as Lusea's name was mentioned. He'd mentioned her before, but now Maea actually understood how big a piece of him this twice-dead woman had been. Something good in an ocean of bad, a light in his darkness... and now that she was gone? She shuddered to think of it, knowing the loss of kin all too well. Indeed she understood the significance of the decorations within the bar too, perhaps more so than the name. Bronze and blue, water and flame, a quiet homage to a love he had not allowed die. Because it had been true? At the very least, far different from what he now shared with Phoebe.
If his mentioning of being a notorious killer bothered her, she made no show of it. Perhaps it was just a little too distant to her own world to fully register; they'd not seen war for so very long, and the idea of man killing man was utterly rare in a region where base survival was proof enough of ones mettle. Settling disputes was done over a keg of ale in the Rathskeller, perhaps with a fist fight to follow.
"What a rebellious son," she commented, fingers absently playing with the curls of his hair, at the back of his neck. "Well earned, I hope it drove him insane wondering who the informant was." She took a savage pleasure in imagining it, and her voice reflected the sentiment; fierce protective loyalty towards this new friend, who was worming his way into her heart with alarming ease.
At his offer to help her train, she smiled wider. "I might just take you up on that. I did ask Deimos for things I could do on my own, but I'm not sure I'd know what weapons to pick just yet... let alone swing them."
