the salt and the sea, aeris pony

[kensley]

i took the poison praying you'd feel it, too i wrapped my neck and prayed that you'd feel the noose It occurs to him that she seems startled. That there is something in her eyes that suggests she had not anticipated being seen. And he could dwell on it, certainly. He could devote hours to trying to work out exactly what in her life had led her to this point, staring back at him as if surprised that he can see her just as plainly as she can see him. Did he look like a predator? Was there something about him that led her to believe that, should she make the wrong move, he’d scurry up the bank of the river and sink his teeth into her? Lay her to waste? Alas, he does not. She blinks and he looks away instead. It is not disinterest that averts his gaze but rather preoccupation. He is too thoroughly sunk into his thoughts to pay mind to much of anything else. He is too focused on trying to breathe beneath the terrible weight of these new things he carries to try and decipher the motivations of anyone else. She catches him off-guard, though he does not give a start. The heart gives one single twinge as it acknowledges that he should be startled by the sound of her voice. But he has nothing at all left to fear, so he does not jump or exhale a breath of self-conscious laughter when she draws closer, armed with a question he doesn’t immediately know how to answer. Instead, he merely swings his head around to fasten his focus to her face again. He smiles but there is no warmth in it. It does not reach his eyes, merely lingers in the corners of his dark mouth before it burns out. She offers her name before he has offered a fitting answer to her question and he stows it away, wonders if he’ll ever need to use it. “Kensley,” he says, though he still feels as if he no longer has any claim to the name. Because the name had belonged to someone good and warm and he is neither of those things. “I don’t know if ‘thoughtful’ and ‘lost in thought’ are the same thing,” he muses with another faint grin.  There is no mirth in it, really. It comes off tired, hindered by his grief.  shattered son of jarris and plumeria