Lost Creek Hollow [m] still water

she mingled her words with common tongue until his dazzlement was true. she had been another once before, but this was where his interest waned. beneath her velvet mien was someone else, someone he did not know. morwenna brought her own experiences to a new life, and sun eater silently rejected knowing these things.

he would not have told her of gheli or red leaf. cen had been laid to rest and yikaas beside. to him, there was little reason to delve into what had been. there was only the morning to come and the night that followed.

still — sun eater found himself moved, and moved further to curiosity. "we say ghost talker," he murmured silently of their mouthpiece to the spirits themselves. "maybe caribou speak to you soon," the saatsine hunter suggested, wishing her to feel well at ease in appreciation for her offering.

but reliance, ah, there was a hard thing. if one were to know of his care for morwenna, it might be used against him. if he came to need her, he might be wounded in a moment where she was not present.

his heavy arm came around the swell of her shoulder, her hip. "already i need," he half-joked in a soft murmur, allowing himself the summery sweetness of an imagining: of love, of this gentle moment becoming the sum of him, softening his burnt edges.

weakening him. 

his embrace tightened thoughtfully.