[It has been... a long three months and some that Hayame has spent in this world called Horos. For most of those within the group called Pleroma... it seems to have been more than enough for alliances, friendships, and sometimes even more to form between people, with fellow aions or the natives of this world. But she... has always struggled with such things. As a jinba in a stable where you knew that your worth was predicated on the price of your future sale, when you knew that any misttep or weakness could lead to the flensing post and the fate of an Armless... you learned to rely only on yourself. You learned not to trust, and to view those who spoke of hope and freedom with disdain and disbelief.
In that village in the mountains, where she had first been prisoner, then tolerated, then teacher, all under the gentle, knowing guidance of a man who knew what it was to overcome a burning, violently consuming hatred... It had taken about two months of peace amongst her own kind in a world of potential freedom for her to begin to hope for a better life. But then... it had all been ruined by her own mistakes, the arrow loosed from her bow before she had known not to shoot. That made it harder to do again, heavy with the weight of her failures and guilt, the rage at the loss of her world either completely or just for her...
But she... If it is for someone who said they trusted her... More importantly, for someone she respected enough to believe when they said they trusted her... Could she not. Could she not try?
Hayame remains still as he moves closer, trying not to look... afraid. She manages to swallow it down to slightly anxious, somewhat hidden by how she intentionally looks the other way as he settles against her flank, afraid of making a womanly expression or betraying her fear that it is too much, too shameful an offer to make despite the fact that logistically there should be no problem with such a thing between two comrades. Her hide twitches and jumps beneath his body as he settles, an instinctive, equine reaction to stimulus that settles as she accepts his weight as welcome and not bothersome, but.
She takes her bow in hand, to remain vigilant as she had promised. She clears her throat.]
... Are you comfortable enough to sleep?
[She has regained much of the weight that she'd lost on the haggard and ill-advised journey over land and not portal from Venera to Lohkimareen, when she had met him in the forests after their first communion with the bones of her lower shoulders and ribs stark beneath her dun coat. Her equine half is firm with muscle, with the fact that she's more nervous now in some ways than if she were up against an enemy in battle, but she is... warm, with a slightly higher body heat than humans possessed. She is softer, around the curve of her rump and her belly.
And perhaps more reassuring, for a man who did not wish to consign himself to silence or anything that felt alone like the forced peace of Innocence... she has two hearts, a double-thrum pulse heavy and obvious against his back.]
no subject
In that village in the mountains, where she had first been prisoner, then tolerated, then teacher, all under the gentle, knowing guidance of a man who knew what it was to overcome a burning, violently consuming hatred... It had taken about two months of peace amongst her own kind in a world of potential freedom for her to begin to hope for a better life. But then... it had all been ruined by her own mistakes, the arrow loosed from her bow before she had known not to shoot. That made it harder to do again, heavy with the weight of her failures and guilt, the rage at the loss of her world either completely or just for her...
But she... If it is for someone who said they trusted her... More importantly, for someone she respected enough to believe when they said they trusted her... Could she not. Could she not try?
Hayame remains still as he moves closer, trying not to look... afraid. She manages to swallow it down to slightly anxious, somewhat hidden by how she intentionally looks the other way as he settles against her flank, afraid of making a womanly expression or betraying her fear that it is too much, too shameful an offer to make despite the fact that logistically there should be no problem with such a thing between two comrades. Her hide twitches and jumps beneath his body as he settles, an instinctive, equine reaction to stimulus that settles as she accepts his weight as welcome and not bothersome, but.
She takes her bow in hand, to remain vigilant as she had promised. She clears her throat.]
... Are you comfortable enough to sleep?
[She has regained much of the weight that she'd lost on the haggard and ill-advised journey over land and not portal from Venera to Lohkimareen, when she had met him in the forests after their first communion with the bones of her lower shoulders and ribs stark beneath her dun coat. Her equine half is firm with muscle, with the fact that she's more nervous now in some ways than if she were up against an enemy in battle, but she is... warm, with a slightly higher body heat than humans possessed. She is softer, around the curve of her rump and her belly.
And perhaps more reassuring, for a man who did not wish to consign himself to silence or anything that felt alone like the forced peace of Innocence... she has two hearts, a double-thrum pulse heavy and obvious against his back.]