[EXP] I Won't Soothe Your Pain

[Theodosia]

let our eyes show the 
fire in our hearts tonight

Perhaps she might have judged Atreus for his relationship with his brother, but the truth was -- well, she’d never exactly had the best of relationships with her siblings either, had she? She doesn’t know either of them well enough, not when she knows how easily an individual could hide behind their reputation: hell, just look at how many people had sworn her sire was a good person and a merciful deity.

If only they had known what he was truly like -- a sadist who toyed with minds and emotions for his own twisted pleasure, a narcissist who only cared about his own delights.

They wouldn’t have believed her either.

“The borders won’t patrol themselves,” She replies with a shrug of her wing before it tucks back against her sides, the feathers and her armor an inadequate protection against the chill bite of the winter air -- but they are better than nothing at all, she supposes, and her attention turns back to him as he sets the basket between them.

“Yes -- my mother would use them, whenever I was sick as a child, and I often helped him gather the leaves.”

She turns her attention to the base of another nearby tree, using her cloven hooves to carefully pull back the layers of snow that blanketed it, seeking out the woody stalks of rosemary that might still remain despite the chill of the season. When she finds a small clump of the leaves, she carefully plucks them from their spot nestled into the roots of an old oak tree, bringing them over to the basket between them.

credits

@Atreus