[P] Wash my soul

[Eik]

"Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls."

- - -

Eik does not know if he has ever seen anyone so unaware of their surroundings. It is slightly shocking, but the thought strikes him that it was only a few minutes ago he found himself suddenly at the base of the mountain, his legs carrying him while he was lost in thought. He is confident that he would have been stirred from his reveries if a stranger had been nearby, but he wonders... A small, private smile slowly curls at his lips.

She speaks, and her voice is just as he imagined it to be. He hesitates, her calm confidence unexpected, then nods his head once, firmly. Even he is not sure if his being there for her safety is a pretense or not. (How good it is to be alone, but how lonely.) But he has nothing else to do, and he does not doubt the genuinity he hears in her invitation.

"I am Eik." He falls in step beside her, slowing to let her go first in the places where the trail thins. Eik is a man of movement, it soothes his mind and slows his thoughts. Whatever indecision he had while standing at the foot of the mountain, it eases away- much as the day does now.

He is quiet for some time, mind split between focusing on the climb, the company, and some faraway thoughts that don't quite have words yet. "Why do you do this?" He finally asks. A creature like him would climb this mountain for the hell of it, to soothe the itch of wanderlust, or even just to feel the cold again

(the cold, his old friend-- the thought excites him and he wonders again why he chose to live in the desert)

but she is clearly not a creature like him.

-  -  -

E I K

@Tirzah