[AW] áldott herceg;

[Eik]

For all the things he's done and seen in his life, the blood spilled, the lives he wiped out of existence (mothers, fathers, children)... for all the sorrow, the anger, the angst, there has been so little fear. And he's certainly never been afraid of another man.

It is only, sometimes, himself he is afraid of.

(And did you forget already the fire? The smell of burning flesh? Isn't that really what twists your secret heart?)

So while he should be wary of this stranger, he is not. Perhaps it is his usual carelessness- what is it this man could take from him, that he has not already lost? His life? Or perhaps he is simply too exhausted to keep his walls up, especially this far from home. Certainly he forgets there are snakes in the forest, too. Anyway, he keeps his distance out of respect if not fear. He knows how sweet solitude can be, and how easily ruined.

But there is no upset in the other man's features as the quiet is intruded upon. Nothing, for a moment, other than violet calculations. Eik lets himself be looked at placidly, cocking his head at the foreign greeting. It is more familiar to his mother tongue than the language they speak in- but not familiar enough to understand.

He has a sudden ache for the language he was raised on, the sometimes rough, always poetic flow to it, the ancientness of it. In speaking it he felt rooted to his ancestors. Maybe this man before him is distant systrungr, cousin. Maybe he is a ghost.

But he will brood on that elsewhen. The other man's laugh is strangely pleasant to hear, although Eik does not return the cheeky smile.

'Why do you seek this woman?' He asks, to which Eik replies, simply, "I have questions for her." And his next question is followed by a burst of inexplicable laughter, to which the grey can do nothing but patiently await an explanation. When the explanation comes, his eyes widen in surprise, ears flicking back for a moment as though finding the joke unfunny. But Eik can hear the straightforward sincerity in the other man's voice, and he remembers his world is so much bigger now, and far odder than it was just a few years ago. Once he had never dreamed of seeing men fly- now he hardly looks twice when large, winged shadows pass above.

He accepts his ignorance of the world and relaxes again, nodding in response to the man's words.

"Son, grandson, great-grandson..." A silent shrug in the trailing off of his voice. "She could be twenty generations from you, or more." It doesn't matter anyway, if the man does not know the witch. "But you are not from here are you." A veiled look and a half smile. So this man is a red herring, but Eik is not the sort to only take interest in those who have value to him. He is intrigued by the man's story, by the offhanded way he tales such a fantastical story.

(He wonders who shattered reality, and when, and where all the other pieces are. The head lies in one place, the tail in the other, and Why can he only one fragment of the picture.)

"Where are you from, and why are you here?" It is not interrogative- in fact, it is asked with open-handed interest, as though he does not care if the question is ignored altogether. He has learned to temper his expectations, to beat them thinner and thinner until, held to the light at the right angle, it is as though they do not exist.

-     -     -
There is no better way to know us
E I K
than as two wolves, come separately to a wood

@Káin nothing to forgive! Kain is fascinating <3