blame it on hell's fires, and on my desires

[ No worries <3 ]

Slowly she stopped moving. Something about the nearly reluctant way she halted felt like the slowing of time before doom, the dragging of seconds when the adrenaline spikes; a heartbeat becomes an eternity, too many thoughts and decisions.

And they're never good choices you make.

The silence, counted by the rhythmic pounding of his heart, stretched painfully on. Had his question thrown everything off-kilter, ripped through time and space, and forced the turning of the world to halt? Her silence seemed longer than any other silence he'd received from her, and every moment she said nothing was a moment the noose tightened around his neck—relax. No one was coming. The air was clean, the borders still not breached. They had no reason to be out here, but he felt too vulnerable, and Kahlua was still silent. His mouth tasted of terror, and his throat felt swollen; he waited for her face to fall, eyes to mist, voice to recall a Doctor who had, unfortunately, perished in the early winter of last year...

“I know Paladin,” she said instead, and even the howling in his skull grew silent. He felt as if he'd been gently slapped for no real reason, and just stared dumbly at her for a while. Paladin? What did he have to do with anything? Was here here—did he live at the Edge now? While they hadn't quite eaten each others faces the last time they met, the tension had been undeniable, and.. for a moment he feared she'd set off again, yelling the Valiant's name, but she didn't. He still couldn't breathe out, though. It seemed she actually had no recollection of Torasin, and his use of the past tense had gone entirely over her head; he wanted to wince. She wasn't making it easy, looking at him that way—wagging her mental tail, just wanting to help, and he had to admit to having killed someone.

Maybe she wouldn't want to show him her wall anymore, after that.

“.. Is he a friend?” No, he thought glumly, he's a corpse. He shook his head. Everyone else who mattered had known Torasin. They wouldn't have forgotten him in less than a year. And he doubted they would, conveniently, abandon their orders once he'd been away long enough, least of all if he walked willingly into their arms. Damn you, idiot. "I barely knew him," he said quietly, trying to keep the tortured look from his eyes. He didn't know which was worse; being guilty of having killed him, or admitting it to this gentle, innocent soul? The age-old conflict of not knowing whether he should've murdered him or not, pitted against his fear of dying here, where so many things had begun. He swallowed. It was painful. His heart was rattling in his chest like the bones of the dead.

"He was Doctor here, a while ago. Then he.. died." His ears fell back into the mess of white, and somehow he forced himself to walk up to Kahlua. How come his body wasn't trembling as his spirit? "I'm the only one who knows what happened to him," he murmured, pained eyes going from her to the horizon. Somewhere out there they were, his judges and nemesis; enemies. He drew a deep breath. "Your herd mates have been wanting to.. talk to me about it. I fear they may not be very nice." It was as much an understatement as he'd ever made. He wasn't sure he could trust the Dragonwhore to look at him for more than a second before trying to rip his throat out, howling her accusations and hurtling lies at his ears. She'd never impressed him, least of all when she started burning fires among his poor scorched trees.

He leveled his gaze on Kahlua, forced his voice not to waver.

"They think I murdered him, Kahlua."