i am the mace, the map, the fall and the high
Reave does not rush. There is no need when they have all the time they could wish for. When a leisurely stroll through the tall and ancient trees of the Taiga is a stroll through a place as much a home to him as the windswept moors off its northern border. With Rune gliding far above, the path ahead is as clear as Elliana beside him. There would be no surprises on this brief journey.
At least, none but the ones his fetching companion might yet reveal.
The pace they set together is entirely different than the one he might have set had he been alone. But then, there is a wild recklessness in being alone that doesn’t seem to plague him the same way when he has company. No, his recklessness is far different when he has secrets he might pry from the deep recesses in which they hide. Or when he might convince another to join him in his wilder pursuits. Adrenaline is so much more delightful when shared.
It only remains to be seen what she might be convinced of.
He eyes her with amusement as she asks if she will get to keep one. Like him, the garden of the North is not made to be beautiful so much as it is to be bold. “If you wish to,” he replies enigmatically, eyes gleaming with humor. “But I’m not certain you’ll want to weave the flowers in my garden through such a lovely mane.”
He considers her quietly for several paces then, weaving between trees and around mushrooms with the dexterity of someone familiar with their placement. He is not an introspective sort by most standards, but her reactions have made a rather peculiar set of emotions rise deep in his breast. Peculiar, because for the first time in perhaps his entire life, he actually cares what someone he barely knows thinks of him. Perhaps it is the way in which she doesn’t feel like a stranger. Or perhaps it is something else entirely he hasn’t quite picked apart yet. But whatever the case, he finds himself rather put-out that she keeps lifting barriers between them.
“Am I really so much a stranger to you still then?” he asks, that odd feeling getting the better of him. Nevermind that they have truly only known one another for a single afternoon. He feels far more like they have known one another their entire life. And for a brief moment when she had first pulled him into the shadows, he almost believed she had felt the same. “You don’t feel like a stranger to me.”
reave
@[Elliana]