Inbox - Fade Rift

[nonvenomous]

Book/crystal/correspondence/action/whatever you desire.

Comments

[tender]

"I haven't asked any. Not since I left Rivain."

And she stops short of talking about what the Mothers had asked, what prophecies had passed from them to villages and towns and beyond.

"Do you ask questions, when you hear them trying to speak to you?"

[nonvenomous]

Alright but what kinds of questions did they ask --

The focus of his study adjusts, suspicion tightened into crow’s feet, a glancing flicker of reproach he doesn’t try to hide. Spell broken, he looks away, the tension he keeps in his chest pinched in, held, and vented off in a soft huff of exasperation.

“Not anymore.”

[tender]

"Since you've been here?" is the right approach, Derrica thinks.

Maybe he was able to speak clearly before he fell through a rift. Or maybe it's more complicated than that.

And maybe it's easier to talk about this, than to talk about what he did and didn't ask for.

[nonvenomous]

“Since I determined it was an impostor.”

His hands are sorely wanting for a novel to leaf through to separate himself from his reluctance to answer at all, scabbed knuckles curled instead for him to fuss with the lay of his blanket. It’s already very tidy, up to the point he twists out of it like a beached ginger merman.

[tender]

There is a sincere urge to put her hands over his. It even flutters at her fingers, shifts her body to turn more fully towards him.

But Richard likely wouldn't appreciate it. So Derrica settles for holding her place, brow pinched into a worried frown.

"What does that mean?"

[nonvenomous]

Piano wire tension flinches taut up the back of his near arm at her shift -- the surface of a defensive flare that brands bright in his eyes in a look flashed quick aside. This is the bristle of a creature coiled at the bottom of a drain, starved and hateful and ready to snip off the end of the finger being curled down the chute after it.

There and gone.

He folds it away under a spring draw of tension, haggard through his chest, hard bit into collarbones and across his shoulders.

“It isn’t Oghma,” he says, finally, measured over an ill-repressed shiver of exhaustion. “I’m sorry I mentioned it. Please let me rest.”

bow on this y/y?

[tender]

"I'm sorry."

Taking his hand would be unappreciated. Derrica knows this, and so tamps down the notion more thoroughly. The minor hesitation at the request is quickly pushed aside. She rises, reaches to give the blankets a quick tug to cover him more securely and erase the evidence of her perch.

"I'd like to talk of it again, please. When you're ready."

Based on their current track record of discussing magic related information, that might well be another year. Derrica does not point this out.