somebody shine a light
I'm frozen by the fear in me

Unbury me—

He didn't even know what he was doing there. Had someone ever called on him before, because they wanted his advice? Mauja wasn't someone you went to for advice, because.. what sort of advice did he have? Advice on how to fuck yourself up? He had been trusted a few times in the past, given insight into bleak backgrounds and dark hopes and thoughts, but.. common, simple, day-to-day advice? He just wasn't that guy, he.. he.. he was just that stoic, silent thing lurking on the edges. Why would anyone think he had enough sense to give advice?

But despite the confusion permeating his foggy brain, there was warmth in him, a little fire burning in a distant corner of his heart. Did she trust him? What was it she had said earlier, even? I care for you—

He was often called 'friend', but he seldom felt like one. And here Myrrine was, saying she cared, saying there was something she wanted to talk about—with him, and her hazel eyes were soft with anxiety and worry and his own blue ones were sort of cast into a slowly blooming light. "Granted... it's not that long of a life to begin with, but I have been facing difficulties." He held his tongue, but he wanted to say, the length of one's life does not dictate the suffering; one could suffer deeply but briefly, or go through the long, harrowing process of a slow withering...

She would have time enough to suffer, but what she experienced later did not contradict the fact that she had suffered now.

And he knew how difficult it was to speak of things—like pulling the deepest, filthiest corners of your soul into light, voice choking on all the dust and black, guilty grime covering those carefully tucked away moments.

He had felt like that, speaking before the council of his old home. He had felt like that, speaking of it for the first time to his younger brother. He would still feel like it, should he try again, so he didn't.

It's easier to not speak of it at all.

"I thought that; after speaking with him and trying to sort my emotions; that having erm... relations; with him, would help clear up my frazzled thoughts."

Relations? Relations? "What—" he began to say, but her face looked so.. taut, and her breath was growing harsh, and before he knew what was going on she had kicked a tree and was hopping on three legs. What the? He could sympathize with the feeling but he didn't have a single clue what was going on, and slowly, as she lamented that she didn't know what to do now, his mind spun back to what she had said. Erm relations. Obviously she felt .. guilty about it, somehow? Like she hadn't wanted to confess it—

He began to have a vague notion what she meant by it. Unease reared its ugly head in his belly, slithered out like snakes into his veins, and the veil slipped back into place across his light blue eyes.

It seemed to add up—her agitation, the whole 'seek out for advice' (great job picking an elder man for that, I don't need more fucking fuel for this fire), pussyfooting around the subject, the confusion...

"I take it it didn't clear up your frazzled thoughts," he said; his voice sounded distant in his ears, as if it came from far away, and not from him, not from that lonesome creature with a heart thundering in what could only be called fear. It sounded like a waterfall in his ears. "But how do you feel about it?"

[ @Myrrine don't apologize <3 ]

somebody make me feel alive
and shatter me