his answer is pretty much what delight expects, though he can't help the way he looks at him slightly doubtfully. there are plenty of moment where the nénar is grateful for morwinyon's seemingly oblivious nature - lord knows he's shown his hand plenty of times (enough that he wonders if bri could have known, if that was part of her departure as well) and yet mato has never seemed to pick up on anything untoward. but this is the other side of that, delight supposes, whether reticence or compartmentalization or just plain disconnect.
delight's train of thought here is abruptly stalled by the prince's smile. he elaborates, the androgyne nods, his heart still stuttering in his chest. "maybe," he agrees, "but you can still feel it." the weight of her disappearance, of ... losing love. maybe mato really is over it - he doesn't think it is a cruel sentiment but he does worry about mato shutting off. "at least in the realm of us mere mortals," the androgyne adds a beat later, voice playful (unusual sounding coming from him but - hey, he's capable of upbeat humor too).
trash post is filler trash, lmao. xD
Mato is easily lost in the void of the beyond. Beyond his corporeal body, beyond the complexity or lack thereof of emotions. He has done it before and he fears slipping back into it. There was a bought of it during his time in Northstar Vale and he feels the void calling to him: to disconnect from the solid ground that holds him. He has obligations now: he is not free to lose himself in that vast and never-ending beyond again. There is no telling, if he did, if he would come back from it. The next time he might waste away to dust. “What use is letting the feeling fester?” Mato inquires, his words not capricious but merely curious. “It is done. It is time to move on. Maybe she will come back and maybe she won’t. I have to be pragmatic or else I will get lost. I may never get closure but I can’t let it consume me.” His salmon pink tongue draws across his jowls. Perhaps he is too pragmatic: but he doesn’t want to dwell, doesn’t want to linger. He’s thought about leaving, about searching for her but to what end? He has no idea where she has gone or why. It would do no good, give him no closure. “When one door closes, another opens up to us.”
Or perhaps he is simply destined to wander the halls looking for another door that will never come. He is young still and there is nothing to say that he won’t find love again but he isn’t going to look for it. “I’ve never been good at adequately expressing my feelings.” Most of the time they were ambiguous to Mato and he struggles with how to deal with them, how to interpret, how to express them. “Mere mortals?” Mato repeats with a soft, amused snort. He may bear a title of a great star, might narcissistically fancy himself as a king but that’s all it is: his fleeting and fickle narcissism. Mato worries abruptly that he is not grieving Brie's absence enough; perhaps he is more unfeeling than he initially thinks he is. It is relatively easy for him disassociate himself from the relationship he'd once had with her under the belief that she's never coming back. Yet, he doesn't spend long fretting over it. Everyone grieves differently, some spend longer upon it than others. He will always love Brienne but grieving and beating the 'why's' over the head over and over couldn't be healthy.
417 words
speaking with mato sometimes feel as if he were speaking to an ethereal being, an otherworldy creature sent to live amongst wolven kind. delight does not know if he agrees with morwinyon's sentiment but he can, at least, understand. "i don't think i ever told you this, but the pack i grew up with - there was a rock slide, destroyed the whole thing, everyone." the last person - the only person - he's told this story to was brienne, and he has to pause and swallow a lump in his throat. but talking about the story itself feels fine, doesn't bring back the old hurt it used to. "i mean, i got closure but - it hadn't been too long after that i first met you and -- well. a door opens. you're right." he finishes awkwardly. it is part of the reason why they - he - became so important to him in the first place. when delight was at his worst, mato saw something worth extending a hand toward.
he can't help but laugh a little, though he stops himself from saying i've noticed to mato's face. they're closer than he thought they'd ever be but he still idolizes the morwinyon too much to become too familiar. "i'm kidding," he says. "it's good if you aren't ... moping. i'd be," he adds, and looks briefly at the ground. moping is exactly what he'd been doing, albeit not for something lost but for something never to be gained.
he shrugs, looking away awkwardly. his dedication to tindómë, its history, its preservation -- these things definitely originate in the bodies buried under rock and snow but he is past the point of feeling raw about it. and it's a good thing he's looking away, too, because when mato says i'm not sure what i would do without you he nearly chokes, and there is no way the way his heart thumps in his throat isn't audible.
it really really
isn't
fair.
he finally looks back over when mato admits to almost leaving. "i would've gone after you," the nénar admits, trying to play it off as a joke, "so it's a good thing you didn't or the whole place woulda collapsed." (it's a joke hidden in a very honest truth: if mato ever leaves delight will go with him. he would more tindómë on his way out but he would absolutely go with him.)