Moonspear The line is where the night lies

Alaric held out hope, though Treepie couldn’t even entertain it in this moment. She didn’t—couldn’t—hold it against him, not when she could sympathize to a point when it came to guarding his heart. All the same, this conversation had made something very, very clear: nothing romantic would spring up between them anytime soon, for myriad reasons.

He shifted toward her and Pie tensed against her will, feeling terrible about it. Time would surely smooth things over, though right now, the space between them felt awkward and vulnerable in the worst ways. Tiuttuk supposed they ought to go their separate ways and process for a bit and reconvene later (or never).

At his final words, her yellow eyes flicked to his face and held his gaze steadily as she told him, So do you.

Treepie let that hang for several beats before finally looking away. She drew in a breath, blew it out and then forced herself to move closer to Alaric. She pressed her body to his chest in a very brief but hopefully reassuring touch that wasn’t quite a proper embrace. She then stepped back, attention straying to the herd she had forgotten about entirely.

Look, she started. I think we could both use some time to be alone with our thoughts, the Regent thought aloud, speaking slowly, but I don’t want to just strand you here. If you don’t mind observing them in silence, she continued, gesturing toward the goats with her snout, then I’m down to keep doing that.

It might be a little strange, though Tiuttuk realized she didn’t want to just run away from him after that. And it would still allow them the opportunity to independently process a little bit, even if their future hunt might suffer for their present distraction.