[P] daybreak

[Eik]

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I DO NOT BELIEVE THINGS ARE REBORN IN FIRE
I BELIEVE THEY'RE CONSUMED BY FIRE
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He's always had a good grasp of direction. A sense, even without seeing sun or shadow, which way is North. But he's never been good at knowing where to go, what to do. He was a roamer long before he lost his home, and that loss had only heightened the sense of drifting, aimlessly, riding the currents of time and fate and circumstance. He had hoped to find some meaning here in Solterra, and he has yet to settle on anything concrete. There has been no revelation of this is who I am or even this is where I belong, but as he grasps in the darkness he feels something there. Some slippery thing that he can't grip onto, not yet, but the point is- there is something where there was once nothing.

It is progress, and after years of nothingness this small spark of hope is everything to him.

Seraphina is part of it, this change. After all, she was there in the cell with Rostislav, when Eik began to question the lines drawn in the sand. Then she showed him writing, scrolls and papers that woke a thirst in him he didn't realize was there. And she herself is important in this, not just the things she's said and done. From their first encounter he has trusted her, without any particular reason other than a sense that he could. For the man who considers himself slow to come to conclusions, in her case a simple, immediate sense of intuition was enough. He's needed that trust, with her and others, to keep the despair at bay.

All of this to say that he is dumbfounded as she starts speaking, a startled expression bursting across his features before quickly becoming reigned under control. He holds back his response in order to listen silently and carefully to her. Somewhere far away, absently, he admires the great care she puts into selecting her words- it is something he tries to do.

Eik holds his tongue, which has never been a problem for him, and listens with the same deliberateness with which she speaks.

When she is done speaking there is a small pause as he gathers his thoughts, and he replies, solidly, "Of course I will be your Emissary." Doubt writhes deep in his stomach but it is no thing that thinking about will change. He had said he was there, if she needed anything of him. Anything-- so how could he say no to her now, just because the title feels a bit like a noose?

"What... exactly do I do?" He knows the vaguities of course, but... the day to day routines, the time required of him, the freedom he has to make decisions and the authority of those decisions, it all seems overwhelming and he isn't sure what the next steps are. He is willing but ignorant, and that does not seem to him like a good combination. "I mean, now."

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AND THE FIRE HAS A LIFE OF ITS OWN
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@Seraphina <3