Sleeping Dragon ad oblivione

you're more than welcome to hop in at any time <3

„To feel is not always to know,” Yvonne answered softly, her voice a cool balm against the boy’s heated denial. She did not press the wound; she knew well enough that some lies were the only things keeping the heart beating. If he needed his brother to be flesh and blood, she would not be the one to turn him into smoke.

The earth groaned beneath them, a deep, tectonic shudder that made the steam dance. Yvonne saw the boy’s gaze snap to the ridge, seeking an anchor in the shifting landscape. Her own eyes followed the line of his attention, cutting through the sulfurous haze until they landed on the dark silhouette standing sentinel against the grey sky. He was a void in the mist, massive, silent, and watchful. A guardian carved from shadow, watching over the boy with a possessiveness that made the air feel heavy.

Yvonne did not address the brute. She did not offer him a nod, nor did she bristle at his looming presence. She simply filed him away as a threat that was currently leashed, a weapon kept in its sheath for the sake of the child. She withdrew her gaze slowly, returning it to the yearling who sat on the other side of the fissure, trying so desperately to mimic the stillness of a man.

The question hung in the humid air, heavier than the ash. Yvonne looked past him for a moment, her eyes losing their focus as they drifted toward the north, toward a memory of ice and silence that she was beginning to fear existed only in stories.

„The same thing as you, perhaps,” she murmured, her gaze returning to meet his, pale and unreadable. „I search for a face that has been lost to the wind. A memory that I am trying to hold before it melts entirely.” She shifted her weight, turning her shoulder slightly to the heat of the vents. „But ghosts are hard to catch, and memories are harder to hold.”