[Worship] zanarkand. [tw]

[Eik]

Have you ever wished for Death?

The words send a silent shiver down his spine, and he is suddenly keenly aware of the scars littered across his body. They burn as if trying to speak to the strange woman.

(or perhaps they are laughing, as we are, laughing hysterically at the question. Oh woman, if only you knew. Death hates us.)

"Every day for many years." He says finally, very softly. He is not proud of it, and does not like to talk about it. But he's never liked lying. She has a faraway look, and his attention  is returned to the shrines before them. To him they all seem so stupid and pointless now. Prayers falling on deaf ears. "I don't recommend it." He murmurs quietly.

She speaks of the uncertainty of hope, and he breathes in sharply. Her question is the same he's asked himself so many times- how do I know if they're alive? And he almost says they aren't, but he remembers her people are not his own, and as much as he feels as though her feelings are the same as his, they aren't. "I think there is no way to know for sure." He says, faraway, attempting that thing where you think about something without reacting to it, without feeling. It is something he's practiced for so long, yet it doesn't always work. It does now and thankfully his walls stay up, his face straight, even through memories flood him with the scent of smoke and the screams of the burning. He searches for the words to show her how he knows his family is dead, even though there is no real way of knowing for sure. "If you can keep your hope at bay, and your fear," If you can walk that thin line, shedding your emotion like a snake does its skin, "You might find the truth is inside of you, deep down." It takes trust, he almost says, but it sounds too condescending.

His words, all words, all of them, are all wrong-- how do you describe a feeling when you doubt anyone feels the exact same as another? How do you describe color to the blind? His mouth twitches in displeasure, and that hopeless feeling follows, dull and flat and vast. Her pain opens old wounds in him and he wants to tell her that everything is okay, that life goes marching on even when the rug's pulled out of you, and when you feel like shattered glass sometimes there are good days or at least good moments, and it takes time but you fuse yourself together, piece by piece-- but how can he say any of this, when he himself is barely held together by a few kind interactions and that fuzzy sense of hope and fear blurred together, like a photo you can't tell is sunrise or sunset.

(and what does it all matter, why do we pour our time and words and selves into anything at all?)

his inadequacies are laid plainly before him

and all he can say is "I'm sorry."

He reaches his lips near her cheek, breathes in (salt; sea and tears) and then out (warmth; sand and cactus fruit and misery) but does not touch her except for with the heat of his breath, shocked at the sudden realization that he has not touched another in years. He is suddenly afraid that if he reaches just a little farther she'll vanish like a dream.

Eik suddenly laughs at his irrationality, reaching that last inch forward to pluck a reassuring kiss where her cheek meets her neck. She tastes of the sea, a world of tastes in itself, and the sensation is almost overwhelming. He draws away and his laughter fades, the air hanging heavily around them. "I've talked to nothing before. You certainly aren't it." He blinks sweetly, so accustomed to brushing off his own insanities that it doesn't occur to him that he might sound crazy. Then again, if it did he wouldn't care anyway.

(And after all, this is the truth you feel in the marrow of your bones: life is a dance with absurdity. You try not to step on its toes too much, but the music playing is just so damn weird)

"Do you live in Novus?" The late autumn nights have a bite, especially at this elevation, and he hopes to talk her off this mountain before the cold kicks in.

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@Thaleia :3