She looks down at him, and her keenly pleased smile breaks into something more fond. She hides her face in the crook of his neck. "So you so, so you do."
A moment, just to breathe.
"Met someone who knew Bede. Reckoned I ought'a tell you."
There, he sits up as if called to alert: pressed up across rumpled bedding, back straight and stiffened (compared to how he’d gone gentle in her easing grasp), the whole of his focus fixed fully on her.
He forgets the cold, as he forgets his struggle for the blanket itself.
It is not quite relief, what he feels at the news (having gone so long without reason to feel anything of the sort, his heavy heart is incapable of rushing high and hard), but he is glad of it all the same. For a moment, he had assumed the worst: Jone is, much like an animal (much like Noah himself), capable of masking injury with great proficiency; it is possible that she, having so long ago come to terms with his loss, carried on as though nothing at all had happened.
But that is not the case.
He lifts a hand, the edges of his roughened knuckles marking the line of her cheek.
Warmth that stills him. Warmth that calms, relaxing tirelessly tensed muscles as he settles down fully once more, drawing her still closer by narrow degrees. Not a demand, not an expectation.
Simply desire.
That lone constant, even when he fought to deny it.
“When you knew him he was but a child.” Noah puffs in tepid amusement, only able to recognize Tsenka’s name and little else; he is no social thing. “I imagine there is much you both fail to know of one another now.”
And how strange to think there may someday come a time when all of it is laid bare between them.
“There are some that would argue the merit of having your search penned for local papers.”That particular some, for the record, is not Noah.
Noah, who busies himself by drawing scarred fingers through tangled hair in listless, sloping patterns.
“But your instincts do not mislead you: with each passing day the scope of the world narrows more and more under the weight of pressing war— and many roads lead to Kirkwall.”
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A moment, just to breathe.
"Met someone who knew Bede. Reckoned I ought'a tell you."
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He forgets the cold, as he forgets his struggle for the blanket itself.
“Knew.”
Knew, she says, and that is a key distinction.
“Is he….”
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"So far's we know," she says, "he's alive. Last anyone seen, which was years ago, but it's something."
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It is not quite relief, what he feels at the news (having gone so long without reason to feel anything of the sort, his heavy heart is incapable of rushing high and hard), but he is glad of it all the same. For a moment, he had assumed the worst: Jone is, much like an animal (much like Noah himself), capable of masking injury with great proficiency; it is possible that she, having so long ago come to terms with his loss, carried on as though nothing at all had happened.
But that is not the case.
He lifts a hand, the edges of his roughened knuckles marking the line of her cheek.
“Indeed it is.” Years ago. Closer than childhood.
Closer than the Circles falling, perhaps.
“This person, did they know him well?”
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She sits up a little. "The new elf. Ah, Tsenka, it were."
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Simply desire.
That lone constant, even when he fought to deny it.
“When you knew him he was but a child.” Noah puffs in tepid amusement, only able to recognize Tsenka’s name and little else; he is no social thing. “I imagine there is much you both fail to know of one another now.”
And how strange to think there may someday come a time when all of it is laid bare between them.
“Will you search for him together?”
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Noah, who busies himself by drawing scarred fingers through tangled hair in listless, sloping patterns.
“But your instincts do not mislead you: with each passing day the scope of the world narrows more and more under the weight of pressing war— and many roads lead to Kirkwall.”