They haven't seen each other in a while, except in passing. They are always in passing; Eik going one place, or Bexley going another, or both at the same time, exchanging weary glances across the quiet space between them. In this way they shared a certain something-- a moment of camaraderie, or some other silent communication that has no words. It was just a meeting of the eyes, and sometimes more than that.
He never really understood Bexley, and he doesn't think she ever really understood him-- but to be fair, most people didn't. Anyway they had a certain arms-length agreement. They were on the same team, in the same extended family. At the end of the day he'd kill for her, probably. Probably.
(Really it all depends on who, and why. But probably, regardless.)
So when they stumble across each other, each by themselves with seemingly nowhere else to be, it seems like an odd sort of miracle. In the momenta that follow he looks at her, really looks at her for the first time in a while. His first thought is that it is an odd thing to see Bexley so... so fat.
"Bexley," he says with a wide grin. It is unlike him to smile so broadly.
Part of his mind is racing. Remembering. His heart sings, but it also aches. He has not seen a child since--
Since his own.
It is impossible to not think of his loss, but he manages to do so distantly. He can still find joy in the few places there is joy to be found. His grin still holds steady. "Congratulations." It is the single happiest, most sincere thing that anyone in Novus has heard him say. He half-reaches to her swollen belly, stopping himself just inches away. She must feel his breath on her side. He hopes it will not make her recoil. "May I?" He tilts his head, poised to reach across that last bit of space and feel the child separated from the world by not much more than skin and a thin layer of muscle.
It would be so easy now for him to reach out with his mind and make acquaintances with the infant. He could learn her name, tell her stories of her mother, show her what the air feels like in your lungs and what the earth feels like under your hooves.
Bexley would never even know.
But he refrains, sensing an undefined boundary that he is not yet ready to pass. Not yet.
Preggo @
Bexley <33
Time makes fools of us all
