in tenebris est veritas.
A short exhalation escapes her, hitting the back of her mask somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. Perhaps the words that followed could have remained unsaid, with evidence of his own memorialized scars present to her view, but there was something vulnerable in the moment that urged her to give them form. “To not let jealousy cloud my judgment.”
Then she intakes a breath of new air, certain that she will smell the cold outer reaches of the tundra before she sees them. So far there seems to be no trace of them, and so her feet must continue to trust the path he lays out beside her. Trust is easy enough to give to this man who had given her no reason not to, and in fact was very likely the reason she had not become the next cadaver to be dissected by bone-sharpened beaks and talons. But it was too easy to let resentment build in the cracks of such outstanding favors, and saying it out loud made the indignation that much easier to resist.
“I do not expect I will befriend a unicorn, even now that I know where to find one” she says, if only to have something else to say, though her voice does not share that same tenderness in regard to the absent companion. “I am better at hunting and dressing animals than rescuing them from their natural predators. But it is good that you can make use of such a creature. If you are capable of slaughtering so many gore crows at once, I am certain you have encountered worse.”
Then she intakes a breath of new air, certain that she will smell the cold outer reaches of the tundra before she sees them. So far there seems to be no trace of them, and so her feet must continue to trust the path he lays out beside her. Trust is easy enough to give to this man who had given her no reason not to, and in fact was very likely the reason she had not become the next cadaver to be dissected by bone-sharpened beaks and talons. But it was too easy to let resentment build in the cracks of such outstanding favors, and saying it out loud made the indignation that much easier to resist.
“I do not expect I will befriend a unicorn, even now that I know where to find one” she says, if only to have something else to say, though her voice does not share that same tenderness in regard to the absent companion. “I am better at hunting and dressing animals than rescuing them from their natural predators. But it is good that you can make use of such a creature. If you are capable of slaughtering so many gore crows at once, I am certain you have encountered worse.”
