i’ve been training like a soldier; i’ve been burning through this sorrow
It is testimony to his exhaustion, to the bone-deep fatigue, that he does not feel her coming until she is nearly atop him. It startles him, and it is only decades of training that keeps that reaction in check—that keeps him from spooking or swearing or baring his teeth immediately. Instead, it is only the tiniest flinch, the smallest contraction of muscles along his back that gives him away. The black mood that immediately descends upon him when he realizes that she is delicate and female not immediately adversarial.
Not that it meant anything, he knows. He has seen the smallest of hands plunge the dagger the deepest.
His fury roars up his throat along with self-loathing that he has been caught unaware, and he tilts his aquatic head toward her, making a series of small clicks as he begins to suss out her exact location and then general feel of her. What he gets back is confusing, coupled with a scent that is both brine of the ocean and dust of the wind, and it puts his teeth on edge—not helping his current state of mind.
“What are you doing here?” His voice more brusque, more guttural and sharp-edged than he had intended. He would soften himself, if he could, but he’s not certain that he knows how to any longer. Is not certain that he ever knew how. Any soft emotions he had ever felt had been as a young boy and had long since bled out of him. “This is not a place to wander,” he scolds, unsure if it is to protect or drive her away, but knowing that it would be in both of their best interests if she did not linger in his vicinity.
nyktos