Wheeling Gull Isle tongkola

how did he?

he supposed there were plenty of things he could do, but everybody followed a different path. whether that was a path of healing, recovery or simple existence.

it involves honesty, first. you confide in me and i will give you the things that your soul has had removed from it. i will hear all your sorrows and do my best to mend them. a brief glance, before he gave her the respect of looking out towards the see once more. we find your path to healing, together — and the island will be your safe place as healing is not always pretty or kind. this was more words than her weeping may have wished to listen to, but he spoke all the same. heavy importance in his tone.

we tend to our kindness here in the gardens. a monument to the things you have been through that will make you stronger, but you cannot carry anymore. he was aware that he seemed to easily lap into some type of religious prose in these conversations.

we will lay to bed your anguish, heda, and then you can feel that freeness.

u know whats funny, i saw midnight mass like a month or so ago and im like thats bartholomew's voice right there, before u put the gif in his profile, and then i saw it the other night like whoa wavelength

she listened. batholomew brought assurance to heda. 
you confide in me and i will give you the things that your soul has had removed from it.
she sniffled a little, crooking a fore-ankle to rub at her cheek. how could he do this? the question of how remained but some part of her knew there was reply for what she wanted to hear, no step-by-step list of how exactly she could extract the agonies from her soul.
but bartholomew would be there. he would guide her. the notion of telling him anything brought the familiar propulsion of rage, but he had not said she needed to tell him right now.
they'd run down the beach. heda stared back along their tracks in the sand.
his words were poetry; at times they evaded her with the evidence of more abstract thought than she could muster. for now. she breathed. she coughed. she chuckled self-deprecatingly at herself and stood to jellied legs.
"just you and me here, then?" heda asked, looking at the rich, empty land that apparently only housed the two of them. the gardens. her tones wanted to be lighter.

SWOON nothing has made me happier to hear

she did not decline.

she drifted through motions and he remained steadfast in his own. bartholomew found her much like the ocean that surrounded them, in this moment. she seemed to ebb and flow like the tide, pulling in before she pulled away some.

he found he did not hate this.

for now, it seems. he had not given much thought beyond himself and heda. perhaps when we both are ready, we will accept visitors?

a small, toothy grin that would last only for a second or two.

:D

heda nodded, slowly at first and then with more energy. she liked the idea of being here alone with bartholomew, waking each day to some gentle lesson or another. perhaps a run. maybe she would show him how the hunt the many kinds of birds which nested on the cliffs off the green hill. 
and he would help her heal.
which would require talking to him.
which she was not ready to do, but the idea came easier now. his smile was quick and small and suffused his face with something bright, more than sunlight. "don't think i'm good company even on my best day," she murmured. hunger settled upon her like a cape. "i could hunt again for us?"

bitterness seeped from her again, but now its bite did not seem so unbearable — and he understood it better now. her wound had just been ripped open and not the illness ran freely.

he would not hold it against her.

would you like my company for this hunt? he did not offer himself so freely now. it would be important for her healing to decide when and how she indulged company.

he would simply be happy he had reached her, either way.

bartholomew gave her a choice. heda noticed for the half-dozenth time that he deferred to her that way. not in a sense of dominance or leadership, but as an equal. she did not feel like a child on this island. she felt caught between, and the great dark knife rising from the center of her might be the pain holding her back from crossing to the next shore.
it was a wild, dizzying thought. she focused on what his smile had looked like. 
slowly a wry curve crept to her own mouth. heda looked at the ground, then bartholomew. "i uh, i don't want you to see me f— mess up," she simply amended. "i actually broke my ankle not super long ago, doing dumb stuff while hunting. didn't even get it. i will this time." she lifted her paw. "and my ankle is fine now, great really."
was she talking too much? she was.
"i'll, um, come back to our 'permanent location,'" she joked. the little camp had no name. in fact she had none for any of the places. perhaps she'd find one. 
if he had no objections, heda would set off slowly, continuing the way she had gone. at length her body disappeared into the roll of the terrain and she was gone and she was alone, a growing soul left to her own contemplation.

ah, her soul was not the only thing damaged.

he trusted her word though and the island was not so large that he would not find her (perhaps even hear her) should something occur. it did give him the wondering thought of if he should find a medic, or perhaps learn such a thing himself.

he'd see her off with a warm smile and his own trail could cut off towards the lavender fields.