Lion Head Mesa Bitter sweet honey

her responses are non-verbal, which serve ingram just fine. briefly, ingram wonders how bees make honey but then assumes that perhaps it is magic ...or worse, something he does not wish to know. somethings were better left unknown. not every question that flickers across the forefront of his mind like a butterfly's wings needed an answer.

happy with this, ingram offers a grunt of acknowledgment but does not inquire further. he is no healer and has no desire to save lives ( the exception being, perhaps, his own ...and the shadow but he is trying and failing to move on ).

the uncomfortable shift in her gaze lights upon ingram's attention and he studies her unabashedly ...wondering what about his truth makes her uncomfortable. not everyone was a martyr. and not every youth was innocent. he had long since shed his innocence, growing out of it like it was a snakeskin. or perhaps, he'd never had any. there was a part of his soul song that felt old. older than him, at any rate. old enough to have known and felt and thrived in war ...singing to the archaic song of his people.

his mother's people?

it mattered not.

i want... ingram pauses, considering. to feel alive. and he remembers how aware of his life he was when he battled praimfaya; though it'd not been glorious. not with his inexperience and her already half upon her death bed. a terse twitch of his lips is given; unsure how to explain it.

i do not fear death, ingram tells her simply. my people believe that the spirit is reborn. well, supposedly that was only true of the commander's spirit but he was the son of a commander. perhaps that meant his soul had that ability too.

assuming his presence was no longer welcome or needed ( true or otherwise ), ingram takes his leave; giving her space to work.