bitterness is thick like blood and cold as a wind sea breeze
if you must drink of me, take of me what you please
He’s never been the type to have friends, let alone anything else.
His sister was his other half in many ways, a constant companion even when physically not together, but he has not forged any friendship outside of that—never sought any sort of connection, despite the obvious ties that spread out from him throughout his family tree. So it baffles him that he seeks one here, that he finds himself constantly drawn to her. There is nothing obviously unique about her, nothing that makes it immediately apparent, but that doesn’t matter. From that very first moment, she’d had his attention.
So he doesn’t think on it too much now.
Just walks in silence next to her, his footsteps heavy amongst the sand and snow, the cold settling into his bones and spreading throughout him, although he doesn’t find it uncomfortable. He tips one ear toward her, a corner of his mouth tightening in humor, a spark of warmth in usually cold green eyes. “You think you are so clever don’t you,” he asks, although it’s clear in his deep voice just how amused he is.
When she begins to talk about her story, he nods, although he can tell the rivers of pain beneath the words. The ones that she struggles to get herself to say—the ones she brushes over like she seems to brush over so much of the pain in her life. “Maybe one day you’ll tell me everything,” he muses, although there’s no insistence in the voice. “And not just the high level details.” He looks at her from the corner of his eye. They both know that he could find out the truth of her heart without much effort, but he doesn’t want to hear her story like that. He wants her to want to tell him. He wants the truth from her.
But he doesn’t dwell or push or try to force more out of her than she’s ready to say.
Instead he just makes a strange noise in his throat at her question, frowning as he thinks on it. “I never thought that I could,” he says, honest as he rolls a massive shoulder. “The longest place I had ever spent was the stars.” He coughs, surprised by the admission, frowning again. “I—I,” he is quiet for a moment as they walk and he feel his stomach tightening as he remembers. “My sister and I overextended ourselves. We asked too much of our magic, and we lost control. We ended up floating in space for several years.”
He pauses, shaking his head.
“I never thought I would settle anywhere, but I think I could be convinced.”
His smile is a little mischievous as it skirts around his lips, his heated gaze sliding to her.
“Why, Wallace? Would you want me to?”
woolf
I am loathed to say it's the devil's taste