Razorback Ridge and how they hold you like a gun

in the interim between his words and hers, caligula looks back to her face only briefly, and is reassured to see that her expression holds no hint of a threat. the quiet that stretches between them is more than slightly awkward, but he bears it as he bears all awkward silences – desperate to fill the void between them, to distract from the strangeness of his presence, and incapable of reaching for any word that will not make it worse.

luckily, she is, in the end, the one to break it, and for a brief moment his concern over his inability to maintain a conversation vanishes among the rising confusion.

kindness is not a word caligula has ever heard applied to him before. the notion is somehow more foreign than anything else he has faced since he fled; it is, of course, a terrible misjudgment, but even he is aware that there is nothing to be gained by dwelling on the point.

though it must be said. when one has done the things he has, what constitutes kindness is, indeed, a very low bar.

“that is…good, i…of…course?” his voice stutters painfully in his throat. at the very least, she does not seem much more confident than he is, a welcome change from those he has met thus far. it should be, perhaps, less stressful to speak to someone who also struggles with their words; of course, being the…the person he is…it is not.

so her introduction comes abruptly as most of his own. it does not stop his from faltering just the same. “ah. i am caligula.”

he pauses there for a moment, uncertain exactly where to take this. he wants to leave, of course – his brain is screaming at him to do it, despite this being one of the least awful interactions thus far – but it is. again. one of the least awful interactions thus far.

and he did not ask if she was okay simply to fill the silence – although that would not be out of character. more after the shakiness of her movements. there is something…there is something uncomfortably familiar about that. running for so long and for so hard, something he cannot think about for too long without –

caligula squeezes his eyes shut hard enough to see white. not now.

“you are…” his voice wavers uncertainly as he searches for the proper way to phrase this, fails, and makes an unfortunate pitstop at ominous instead. “what are you running from?”