we're death defying, coming in like lightning
“Oh good,” he breathes, features brightening as the tension he hadn’t known he’d been holding dissipates. The relief is both immediate and immense when she tells him it had not been her he had been chasing. Of course, it doesn’t occur to him that the deer he had been chasing might be a creature she knew. One she cared about as he did for all his siblings. One she identified with on a deeply intrinsic level.
Once, he might have been able to read all of that in her thoughts. Now though? Now his own thoughts bleed briefly into the ground around him, a shimmering wash of navy that stains everything around him before disappearing just as quickly. He doesn’t notice it. Had stopped noticing it some time ago much in the same way he’d once ignored the chatter surrounding him.
'Are you all right?' she asks, and he immediately dips his head, embarrassment rushing through him in a wave of hot pink. Clearing his throat, he manages to reply, a bit gruffly, with, “I’m fine.”
It’s mostly true. Nothing is broken. He can walk, though he immediately tries to hide the slight stiffness in his gait. He also certainly wouldn’t mention the bruises already beginning to blossom. Instead, he offers her a faintly forced grin. “I’ve had worse.”
Which is at least mostly true. Of course, he wasn’t about to tell her just how many times he’s been bitten on the nose for sticking it places it shouldn’t be. Or the time he’d nearly drowned himself in the ocean because he’d just had to investigate what was causing a weird flash.
One embarrassing story at a time.
Clearing his throat again, he does his best to change to the subject. “Maybe we can pretend that never happened?” His smile is more natural this time, a bit lopsided with a dash of the roguish charm that had gotten him out of trouble more than once. “I’m Roue.”
roué
@dear