behind the cellar door

Kiada hadn’t intended to frighten him as her hands clutched onto him briefly. Her eyes widening in response to his own wide eyes and flinch. Dropping her hand immediately, she draws breath quietly as she explains to the best of her knowledge the information about the protruding black Spire. As he asks of a creature, she nods in a curt way – her brown hair shifting with the light and the movement. When Seiji apologizes, she shrugs her shoulders with a quick and effortless roll. “You didn’t know.” Her voice is surprisingly light, and she offers him a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry too for grabbing you.” She finally managed to say, running a quick hand through her hair and sighing quietly. She had overreacted, and she didn’t even know Seiji that much aside from what he had told her. It seemed a majority of their conversation was better fit to internal monologues – of dreams and cities left behind and trying to understand how to go on from there in a new world and different life. As she points out the Spire against the wintery landscape, her icy gaze lingers on him briefly. He spends a few moments staring at it and – was that shivering? Quietly, she removes one of her furs and offers it to him in a kind gesture to wrap around his shoulders. He wasn’t prepared for the winter here, and she had some extra furs back home so it didn’t bother her at all to offer up one of them for a new found ally. Then she turns to look back at the Spire, squinting against the light. “I don’t know who built it. I didn’t see very much either, we mostly just circled around the top and flew until we couldn’t fly any longer. There’s a strange weather about that place – and it rained and soaked my feathers and battered us against the winds. It was safer to not get too involved.” She offered to him with another slight shrug before remembering she wanted to prove that magic existed here. Perhaps it would lighten the mood. Smirking to him, she reached into that deep part of her where her magic was stored – pulling at it until finally it snapped and in a flash Kiada no longer stood head to head with him. Now, a small and pale bearded vulture stood where she had, fanning her feathers along her wings as if she were showing him that she was still herself. Though her heart panged at the familiarity of the dark feathers when they moved in her vision. The scarlet gaze of the bird looked up to Seiji with a curious look before a guttural sound left her beak and she shifted back into herself. “I was a bit too big I think to handle the storm at the top of the Spire, the wind had no trouble pushing me around.” KiadA and here you come, with a shield for a heart, and a sword for a tongue.

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