Hushed Willows oh you should've been a mother, you should've been a wife

olive is small -- like him, like seabreeze -- his body beats against hers nervously: it's been a little while since he held someone like this. it doesn't hurt like he thought it might. in fact, breathing in the pleasantly earthy smell that the shakti carries soothes him, grounding him back in the here and now. he can understand how seabreeze came to love her so.

he thinks of the metaphor he's always carried, thoughts absently turning it over while olive composes herself. if mato was the sun -- beautiful but harsh, unable to be looked at, burned to touch; and if alarian was the moon -- so close but always so far away, always turning away, retreating at the sign of light, brilliant and wounded; and seabreeze -- she is the sea, no -- no, that's too obvious, she is the earth itself, steady and solid and carrying both great beauty and tragic devastation within her; what, then, could olive be? the stars seems so cliché (though the silver sheen of her coat beckons comparison, he thinks).

to know, he'll have to get to know her better, he decides. 

her apology brings a tired smile to his mouth, a gentle shake of the head. "it isn't easy," delight agrees, sound rather world-weary himself, "but you were right, too. we have to find a way through it or we'll be... trapped by it, forever." (and who is he to make that point, considering--)

"maybe we can help keep each other in check," he suggests, interrupting his thoughts, "er, if -- that'd help, you think. or check in on each other, at least." he moves slightly so that his eyes might find hers, searching for what pain he can find, that he might try to reassure her.