There it is--
I was wrong.
Sometimes in the dead of night a palm will shed its fronds. They fall without notice and with far more force than you would expect of those sickly-looking brown leaves. But they are so far up, from below you couldn't realize the weight and heft of them until they come mightily crashing down, breaking the silence of the night.
He does not expect Moira Tonnerre's admission, nor the torrent of words and feelings that follows. He takes it in like the shore to the ocean, letting her wash over him, feeling the sentiment that soaks every word. She is and always was a marvel to him, a garnet among river stones. Her passion, her strength, her color-- for that is what her thoughts read like, like looking at a wild painting, a mass of colors in shapes at once familiar and foreign.
"Everyone loves her," he says like an admission of something, and if his smile is a little sad it is still a smile. How could they not. He can only dream that nobody loves her like he does-- and he thinks this dream might be more than a dream, unlike so many others-- at least for the moment. He knows too much to assume there is anything in this world that does not change.
(there is, of course, one glaring exception to everyone-- and where there is one there are bound to be others. Still, no one inspired love the way Isra did, even when she was creating blades instead of flowers.)
Regardless, he is content to love, and be loved, and to share this with friends-- with family, for that is what they have become now. Asterion and Moira, Isra and Bexley, the bits and pieces of Solterra that he holds close (threadbare scraps now, worn thin by the recent turn of events) they are all the family he has left anymore.
"They sound like a fool," he says with a wry smile, oblivious to the fact that the they in question is one of his closest friend, if not the closest. "But they must be special." Who else could temper the wild flame of Moira Tonnerre?
"I wish you good fortune," His words sound to him like that of an emissary and he absently wonders, not for the first time, what will become of him at the end of all this. It surprised him, how he grew into his station. It was not a thing he expected to miss when it was gone. "Don't ever give up, Moira." He stops walking, looks at her very seriously. He needs to know she's listening, for his opinion is not often shared and thus it is important to him that when it is, it is heard. "Love is worth it. I promise." He meets her gaze without wavering, and then gently bumps his shoulder to hers before beginning to walk once more.
"I heard you were wonderful, in Isra's absence." Eik does not smile but his voice is warm, proud. I knew you would be, is what goes unspoken.
@
Time makes fools of us all
