The air quickly turns into something far more playful than it had been in thIt's an awful sensation, your skin being clawed at from the inside. My eyes remain open, fixed upon the soft surface of the ruby pool as the scab holding in disease, dirt, filth, tears from flesh.

A mixture of yellow, brown and crimson slides and oozes easily from the wound with slight pressure, and my shoulder twitches against my will with the force of the pain. It slides with the water down my already stained white leg, the scent of decaying flesh filling the air more strongly than before. I feel in my heart the beating of a man alive, but emotionally the cleaning of the wound, the fixing of my mortality, brings me closer to feeling dead than I had for a while.

Ryouta, nakanmon.
Softly, softly her voice drifts into my thoughts and curls around my psyche like a warm blanket. The narration of my medic cannot reach me, and instead I find myself drifting into the past. The pool of blood near my hooves takes me back to her own, quietly usurping the pale figure on the ground. Her sightless eyes closed tightly, her breathing ragged and shallow. When I had fallen to my knees at her side, she had smiled, like my very presence were enough to clot her blood and make her whole again.
Ah, but even in those last few moments I could not fulfill her wish. My eyes ran thick with tears, my muzzle covering the smile. Rain fell on her face from my own sorrow, and yet, she still willed me to be happy.
I am not happy, nor do I think I could ever be.

At some point, the tears from my past slip through the cold, emotionless exterior in my present. One slides down my cheek and hits the floor before I realize. I shut my eyes for a second, opening them back up to Seanan, whose rose eyes find mine as his words are directed at me. Surprised, I look back to my shoulder, wondering how long my musings had captured my attention.
"I understand," is all I can manage, my eyes coming to rest upon the thin structure of his face. "Thank you."

When he speaks of pain, I shake my head. "I prefer it," I say quite flatly, my tone revealing nothing but maybe the drying streak on my cheek would. "Pain is a good reminder." Again, like much of my dialogue, I make no attempt to explain to them. I found that many people felt sympathetic to my story up to a point, and I could garner their love and warmth at the mention of grief.
I do not want their attentions, their affections. I want hers, but we both know that is not possible.

Instead, I stand here, a bandage on my former death sentence. The painted stallion asks me if I feel better, and I laugh, a hollow and ugly sound. "Yeah, I am fine now."
Like I thought, I can't die so easily.

He needn't worry. I knew if I told him so, he would probably only worry all the more. For whatever reason, Ashamin seems quite unable to leave well enough alone. That is evidenced in our short period of being together. I feel that if I had met him when I was younger, newer, with innocent eyes and my warmer heart, we could have been friends. Now, I don't know what I would call our relationship. Ashamin is too kind for me, and I am not quite selfish enough to take full advantage of that.
As much as I want to be a lone glacier, I feel that my icy exterior is quickly melting.

"I will stay here for a while," I say, looking at the glimmering pool in the dim light of the forest. I pause, trying to recall what that white ghost of a stallion had called this place. "Helovia - I mean."

My eyes falls on them for a brief moment before I turn, my wings folding gently upon my back and shielding the bandaged wound, hooves taking me slowly to follow the riverbed farther south. "Maybe, I'll see you around."
The words are half-hearted, but they reveal a little bit more about myself than I'd like. Somewhere, I think I want to see the awkward healer and the bleeding heart again.
This never would have happened in Eikkahn. Why am I trying to get closer to others?
They only bring trouble.
""

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ooc -- I don't mind either way, Jen, lol. Ryouta is out~

nakanmon = don't cry anymore