[AW] Break through the surface and breathe

[Averin]

averin ILLUSION NEVER CHANGED INTO SOMETHING REAL He isn't sure that he'll be found all that useful, but he lists the things that come to mind at the questioning, oddly unprepared to be put on the spot like that. He was used to the chores he had done for the caravan, but they did not ask questions so much as give orders and expect him to learn quickly whatever task it was that they set him to, if he did not already know how to do whatever it was. And Averin would figure it out in some manner, because there was no good in being a disappointment and the punishments that would follow. Still, Averin should have expected the questions with a new master, but this situation is new to him, and he was struggling to adapt to it as fast as he could as it was. Being on his own these past weeks -- was it really weeks? he cannot be sure -- had been difficult for him, as the notion of being lost brought on extreme anxiety and probably more than a small dose of fear. Yet Averin had endured that, holding onto the thought that he would be found, that Only would come to the river eventually and things would get better. Right now, Averin was speculating on if that was true or not. He did not want to be alone, did not want to be set out for those that would wish to rip him apart, but he isn't entirely sure that Only wanted him that much right now. Too many mixed feelings, mixed signals here to be able to relax the onslaught of his own mind. At least he wasn't in Only's. The sharp tug of his mane gains a wince, but Averin does his best to cover up that jab of pain; to pretend he was unmoved by it altogether. The wince had been involuntary, and it's too late to take the motion back now. He acts as if nothing's wrong, but the silence around them feels uneasy and rife with something. Something sinister, perhaps. Averin doesn't comment on it, and in part that is because he does not actually wish to know that truth. He wasn't ready to hear it, and he might never be. But Only had caught his gaze and Averin isn't sure if he should quickly look away or if that would be more rude in this moment. In the end Averin's gaze darts away from the scrutiny, lands to the dirt in front of them. Looking at the ground felt much more safe in this instance, and he isn't sure why he feels that way. Like something was staring at them, though Averin couldn't guess a direction because it was Only looking at him right now and that was all too distracting. Another one-word from Only and Averin says nothing. He waits it out because the word did not sound like an ending stop, but a precursor to something to come. He was to run tasks, he learns in the moments to tick by next, and Only was giving him information on these tasks, and then the comment of trusting that he could read as well as he could fly. "Rarely and without practice?" He'd blurted it out without thinking, and he ducked his head in shame over it. Shame over both the blurting of it, and the truth of it. That he wasn't that great at flying, hadn't had much practice because to fly was to be able to better escape, and the enforcers of the caravan couldn't have that. Averin is sheepish now. "No, I can read better than I can fly." He amends, not wanting that sliver of blurted sass to get him in trouble, true as it was. But Averin has to focus on the fact that he had to go alone, and could not speak of the arrangement to anyone else. Is that what Only called this? An arrangement? Averin gives Only a side-long glance and a little frown, but he nods in agreement anyway. "Which direction first?" Because there should be some starting point he didn't have to pick for himself. And then there's that nagging little thought that maybe he's said far too much already to at least one other, but it had seemed harmless at the time and Averin would proceed with more caution and keep his mouth shut on the matter. He had never felt the need to hide what he was, because it was merely the way of the world for him. There was some concern in what kind of scrapes he might get into while on his tasks, since there had to be places that getting into might not go so very well for him. Then what would he say? Averin took a calming breath, trying to settle himself in this. He would find out how to get by. He could do that, because it was his orders and he needed to follow those as if his life depended on it. Because it might. I'M WIDE AWAKE AND I CAN SEE THE PERFECT SKY IS TORN

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@Only