[private] just deliver me truth; gale

[breach]

for so long had my teeth held my tongue from a venomous voice
but the poison has passed from my lips to my hands, an incendiary point

He frowns, but he doesn’t seem agitated by the moment and so she relaxes it again. She tries to focus on letting her muscles loosen—on letting them relax one by one, but it takes more effort than she would have thought. So she focuses instead on his face and, eventually, on the answer he gives. “I was almost born in Loess,” she ponders for a moment, the name of the land surprisingly bitter on her tongue. She thinks of how Oceane had stolen her. How she had torn the throat of one of the Loessian kingdom members before she had left. She thinks of how Loess had nearly broken her mother. And then she pushes it to the side.

“It’s a good bird to like,” this pulls a smile from her, genuine and free.

Her eyes widen a little at the turning of tables, but she doesn’t deny him. Doesn’t outright tell him no. Instead she walks next to him, falling in line with his pace. She thinks of it—tries really hard to remember all of the happy moments in her life, as few as they may be. When she finally lands on one, her entire face grows a little softer. “I was a young girl,” a fairly normal start, “and my mother woke me up one day. Told me to follow her.” The story is easier to tell than she thought it would be, the words coming easily.

“It was cold out and I remember being so tired, but my mom wasn’t particularly good at taking no for an answer so I got up and followed. She shifted and I mimicked her—and did my best to keep up.” A soft laugh. “For hours, it felt like.” Another thoughtful pause. “Eventually, we got to the forest and she spent the entire day teaching me how to hunt. How to track an animal. How to make yourself practically invisible.” Tears prick the corner of her eyes but she doesn’t try to chase them away—not yet.

“It may not be my happiest memories, but it certainly one of them. Getting to spend uninterrupted time with her. Getting to learn from her. Feeling special because she was there. Safe.”

She shivers before admitting.

“I miss her more than I admit sometimes.”

though ritual pyre sending smoke to the sky as the building continues to burn
though rapt in the ruin, the pain in the grave, is lies you leave tied to the earth

@[Gale]