He is looking at her but he is seeing Brinly’s face as they raged at each other. He is seeing Kensa and the way she snapped. He is seeing Vastra and her wildness and then Brunhilde and her venom. He is seeing Lilliana and the way she had broken beneath his cruelty. He is seeing Wonder and the disappointment that would paint her expression black. It makes his throat dry, this ache that spreads through him.
This realization of the monster he has become.
It snaps his mouth shut and he swallows hard, his tongue suddenly swollen. He would bite down until he severed it clean off because he had no right to talk to anyone—not any longer.
His grey eyes focus and although his face does not soften—the edges and cliffs of his it do not suddenly become gentle—the storm rages just a little less. He is quiet as he studies her, as he lets the silence between them stretch and he just watches her. Sees the way that she crackles beneath the pressure of his anger and so quickly bends to it. The way that she apologies but stands still, doesn’t run from him.
It lights his curiosity just a little—enough to dull the keen edge of his self-hatred.
“You didn’t disturb me,” he sighs, bitter and defeated. “I was coming to get a drink when I saw you…” his voice trails off and his wings shift by his side, turning from that thorn and leaf into the red down feathers that are most common. They are as dark wine as the rest of him and press into his sides as he falls silent again. Because what was he going to say? When he saw her nearly die?
When he had raged and yelled at her like it was on purpose?
Instead he sighs again.
“My name is Brigade.”
BRIGADE
when I was a man I thought it ended when I knew love's perfect ache
but my peace has always depended on all the ashes in my wake