He has remained somewhat of a mystery to her, the puzzle piece that she can never seem to find the place for. Most have woven themselves into her life so tightly that she could not break the bonds forged in blood and pain and love even if she had wanted to. Eight was like a shadow, something that could be seen but never touched, always slipping through her grasp. He was both there and not there in a way that she found almost maddening if she were to let herself linger on the idea for too long, so of course, she does not.

She pretends she is content for things to be the way that they are, and not at all slightly curious at how a heart like his worked.

“Something must keep you here,” she responds in a way that suggests a certain idleness, though the tilting of her haloed head and the focus of her gemstone-gaze on him says otherwise. There is another tendril of her silvery laugh, quiet and short when she adds, “Or is this just where you visit after conquering lands elsewhere?” She has not left Beqanna since she arrived, over a hundred years ago, and sometimes she wonders what would happen should she try. Would this entire world that has molded her into all that she is and carved into her bones collapse and cease to exist if she was not here to bear witness to it? How could she be sure this world was still spinning and moving on without her if she was not here to watch it?

“A little different, and somehow the same,” she says in response to his observation. She had seen him last with fresh eyes – brand new eyes that found even the night sky to be too bright. He knew her too when the sockets were scarred and hollow, and though they might glitter now, she is still in the dark. “Blind is blind, even with placeholders.”