Gale
this is going to break me clean in two --
this is going to bring me close to you
She doesn’t move away when Gale comes closer, and even laughs as she greets him. Her eyes are sad, but he has learned that sometimes it is better to pretend he has not noticed that at all, so instead he allows his curious eyes to wander across every part of her and is not at all bothered by his silence as he does.
She replies, and shows him her stars, and Gale is immediately enthralled. He steps closer, heedless of the grey mare, and looks from nebulae to star, peering closely at the miniaturized wonders.
“I think it’s remarkable,” he says, and though his voice is noticeably distracted, it is clear by the fascination in his gaze as he inspects her stars exactly what is the source of that distraction. It’s not his intent to be rude, but in this novel moment he finds the stars themselves far more intriguing than conversation.
She calls them friends, as though they are not a dozen suns, and Gale listens intently lest she share more about them. Only when the stars are out and the sky is clear, she says, and Gale immediately wonders if they can appear beneath the canopy of trees that prevents her from seeing the sky.
Before he can ask, she is talking again and calling him Lightning Boy as though it is his name, with a familiarity that is at once intriguing and alarming. He isn’t entirely sure why he feels either of those emotions, so with an ease that has come easier since the dark god had Looked at him, Gale ignores them both.
“For the moment part,” he responds instead, always honest. “Some are newer.” He gestures vaguely toward the healed injuries - a slash across his breast from competing in the Alliance, a pale hind limb that’s been entirely regrown from the magic of his self-regeneration, the red V with which Mazikeen had marked him.
He’d been thinking of the Alpha’s catlike shapes when he’d seen Ciri’s scars earlier, and now he asks curiously while gesturing at the clawed scar on her shoulder: “What is that from?” It doesn’t occur to him that scars might have more meaning to those who do not heal from them with near-immediate (at least these days) ease. He means it in the same friendly manner with which the rest of the conversation has gone, and there is only curiosity behind his wide blue gaze.
@[Ciri]
|
