Broken Boulder i believe in symmetry

often delight has reflected (sometimes admiringly, often amusedly) on olive's similarities to mato. not to obscure the ways the sylph is her own person, for she has that dear sweet quality mato so severely lacked, pure empathy, yet he cannot help but find her presence naturally soothing. yeah, he gets it, he gets why seabreeze chose her. or was drawn to her, maybe, but chose her, coming here with her instead of staying with her children's father. it's exactly what he would have done with mato.

all that to say, she's doing more than she realises for him in this moment, gratefully accepting the soft press of her nose. the androgyne listens to her words with the gravity they deserve, something small lighting in his eyes at the word elysium. it's not a word he's heard before, but it immediately reminds him of mato's druid-language, though he is sure it is not the same. 

"i don't," he admits easily to her question, unbothered by her proximity. something about her aura is healing. "i don't pray, and i don't know -- i've never really thought about, you know, having a soul." can he believe in olive's elysium, her souls? what does that mean for him, for his family, for mato and alarian and his children and the dead? the king elk had been something soul-like, or had it, perhaps. it is not that delight does not believe in the afterlife, it is that he has spent so much time running from the affects of death he has not paused to consider what might happen. now, though, he murmurs, "maybe you're right," though the idea of actively praying makes him feel... silly, somehow. curiously he shifts his gaze to her face. "though then i wonder, maybe, if my soul isn't bad." if anyone is fit to pass judgement he imagines it is olive and her aura, though he isn't seeking her judgement here, for she does not know the scope of his failures or his innermost wants, hidden under layers of repression. but the thought escapes him anyway, stolen from his mouth in the easy way he never can exactly hide what he's thinking.