EVIE
“It was likely better off without them,” she agrees with a soft laugh, refusing to remember things like belated letters and friends lost to ghost whales beneath the waves. Their serenity is hard won and too rarely experienced, and Maea’s fate hadn’t been permanent anyway. His outlook is kept mum, though admittedly she might have changed her mind had he spoken it. Perhaps it’s the life she’s led, but even war does not seem like an inevitable end. The barrier had, once. The spire, Zariah’s reign, the freeing of the Grounds. And yet each time they’d come out the other side. Or maybe she’s just too optimistic, when she doesn’t feel she is.
His grin and the intensity of his gaze as it lingers should be intimidating, or flustering, but it’s not. Her smile is warm with agreement, and when the smallest tinge of doubt and hurt creeps into his tone, she knocks her spoon against his in the bowl to playfully knock his dough off and laughs. “No, you wouldn’t. But it wouldn’t make the material any less capable of being used that way.” In this way she’s different to Ru, because the idea of him doing so never even crossed her mind. Teasing her in private or with a whisper in her ear? Absolutely. But she knows her secrets - and her embarrassing moments - are safe with him.
Ah, right, monsters. That was a big part of it too. Though she’s not surprised by his secondary choice, given it’s the second coolest season. “Here,” she replies softly, staring down into the bowl. Then she bites her tongue at the snappiness of it, laughing a little too brightly and forcefully to distract from her answer and hoping it was vague enough to imply the land they’re in. “Or there’s this one shallow section of the river in King’s End, right where it branches into two at the border of Hak Etme. It has a sandbar, and the water gets warmer since it’s so shallow. There’s a little copse of trees you have to walk through, so there’s barely any visitors, but it’s perfect to swim in - the current is slow, the sand is soft, and it’s not too deep. I had many lunches there, watching the water.” It had been the most peaceful time she’d ever known. But also the loneliest, which is why her answers are so torn. “What about you? With all the adventuring you’ve done surely you have some secret spots to share.” And the gleam in the Evergreen’s eyes is proof enough of how she’d love to be made privy to those locations.
His grin and the intensity of his gaze as it lingers should be intimidating, or flustering, but it’s not. Her smile is warm with agreement, and when the smallest tinge of doubt and hurt creeps into his tone, she knocks her spoon against his in the bowl to playfully knock his dough off and laughs. “No, you wouldn’t. But it wouldn’t make the material any less capable of being used that way.” In this way she’s different to Ru, because the idea of him doing so never even crossed her mind. Teasing her in private or with a whisper in her ear? Absolutely. But she knows her secrets - and her embarrassing moments - are safe with him.
Ah, right, monsters. That was a big part of it too. Though she’s not surprised by his secondary choice, given it’s the second coolest season. “Here,” she replies softly, staring down into the bowl. Then she bites her tongue at the snappiness of it, laughing a little too brightly and forcefully to distract from her answer and hoping it was vague enough to imply the land they’re in. “Or there’s this one shallow section of the river in King’s End, right where it branches into two at the border of Hak Etme. It has a sandbar, and the water gets warmer since it’s so shallow. There’s a little copse of trees you have to walk through, so there’s barely any visitors, but it’s perfect to swim in - the current is slow, the sand is soft, and it’s not too deep. I had many lunches there, watching the water.” It had been the most peaceful time she’d ever known. But also the loneliest, which is why her answers are so torn. “What about you? With all the adventuring you’ve done surely you have some secret spots to share.” And the gleam in the Evergreen’s eyes is proof enough of how she’d love to be made privy to those locations.
Don't look up, just let them think
There's no place else you'd rather be
There's no place else you'd rather be
