[AW] you cured my january blues ,

[Eik]

E I K
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These lands once seemed a paradise to him.

(The thought strikes him as funny now-- oh, for all his years how naive he is yet! As though all he needed to be happy, to not be driven mad, was a bit more sun and a people not constantly at war.)

((but when the madness is inside you, it can only be driven out from the inside))

Now, they seem just as damned as his homeland- moreso, even. On a daily basis he finds himself muttering curses to Solis and his damn pride as he flounces across the sky, imagining that this is what they mean by hellfire. Eik worshiped the sun, once, in the lands of long winters. Now he knows you can, indeed, have too much of a good thing.

And the people-- bickering, haughty, serpentine. Squabbling over castles in the sand like children. A feeling of desperation has been rising in his chest, pushing outward. He needs this place to work out, he cannot be left alone to his musings again.

It is with this backdrop of thoughts that he encounters her, and while he pessimistically expects her to be horrible company, he longs for company nonetheless. He cannot read her response but he senses there are emotions that lie far deeper beneath it. "I'm sorry." He says, though it is ambiguous what exactly he is sorry for-- for asking the question? He looks at her, really looks at her. Like a dark river he cannot see how deep she runs.

"What does it matter?" He asks, sincerely. The way she looks at him pricks at something deep, makes him feel squirmy and uncomfortable. He isn't sure why-- he has nothing to prove to the red stranger.

(or so he tells himself)

But he thinks again--- the question takes wings in his mind, as the wording of it unfolds and refolds and unfolds again. I am... There is a smile, brief and humorless. "I suppose I am a ghost."

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@rhoswen ugh sorry he's so ~moody