Firefly Glen the grand optimist

It would have seemed nothing of the sort would come forward, though Dirge didn't wait to find out either. He had loosened himself from the stranger's side just as swiftly as he had come, his attention rounding on Hydra sharply. He would have welcomed a swift reprisal, if only for something entirely out of the norm, something to break the inlay of stagnation that was beginning to rise.

But here, it would not come—the only thing that laid before him and beyond was the steady rise of the mountain, and between that was the cut and pose of Hydra. He stopped to linger beside her for a moment, his back still turned on the stranger. For the briefest of moments he considered the questions that came to rise on his tongue but the words would not come; it was expressed in his gaze as it traced her instead, and then swept out towards the path he intended to take.

If she followed him, then fine; if not, that would have to be fine as well. Even for the glancing blow of jealousy that coursed him, he trusted her to be wise in her decisions—if for nothing else than the children and station they shared, she was stuck with him even if her tastes decided to change with the season.

His intervention was come and gone.