Teiran cannot help but to listen to his breathing as it rattles through him. The weakness of his body is quite evident. The exhaustion of his mind and spirit is more obscure to her, more difficult to discern, but he reminds her of a fading, flickering candle flame. Clinging to life, against all odds. In her life she has found that some are like that. Some scream and kick and fight and others hold on tightly, courageously. In the end, though, everyone has fight in them.
Eik speaks and his accompanying cough jolts through her body like a lightning bolt, and Teiran thinks that maybe she can almost feel the shudder of it in her bones, as if they might, too, tremble and fall. But they remain strong and locked in place, as unfailing as they’ve ever been. “You are easy to babysit,” the soldier says in response, and she is not joking. The Emissary doesn’t get in her face, doesn’t babble on about senseless things, and he, perhaps, out of everyone at this party, needs her the most.
Even if he doesn’t know it. Even if she doesn’t quite know it either.
‘Thank you. For what you do.’
If Teiran were anyone else she might shrug humbly, might become bashful. If she were anyone else she might take it in stride, with her chest puffed out. But she is not anyone else, she is just her. A girl raised in the desert on blood and grit and the feeling of magic invading the deepest parts of her, and she does not wield compliments like badges or hide from them in modesty. She is a soldier, bred for conflict, and what she does is all that she knows to do.
“I wouldn’t do anything else,” she says, and, “Solterra is my court and it’s people my people.” Including him, including everyone at this godforsaken party. Including the souls lost in the blizzard that Eik says he can see or feel. She looks at him again, sage green eyes assessing what she sees. “Why don’t we get you inside. The court needs you well, Eik,” and Teiran offers her shoulder for him, should he want it, so that they can both get out of this damn snow.
@
