Buried Treasure (Pash'nar)

[Sariana]

22 Day of Summer, Early early morning. Early.

To say she was angry, well, it was an understatement. Sariana was fuming, raging, roiling inside with a thousand things she wanted to say to the ethaefal that had so casually strolled back into her life. She wanted to do to him things that were not of a pleasant nature. Unable to sleep, her mind twisted and turned with words spoken in public - in front of their mutual travelling companions and friends no less. The drykas didn't just feel hurt by Pash'nar, she felt humiliated, dishonored. And it was not good enough that he just disappear like some ghost every time they had a disagreement. Petch him all to hell the damned celestial would answer to the waves left in his wake.

Throwing herself into the still dark ocean, the warrior swam the distance to his small boat, fueled by her bruised and battered emotions. It was early, perhaps it would be regarded more as late. Midnight had most certainly past, but morning was still a while away, the sky a deep deep blue. Reaching the gently swaying vessel, she grabbed the anchor and hauled herself on board, muscles in her arms and back screaming in protest. This time, she hadn't come dressed in some transparent piece of fabric and she most certainly hadn't left her weapons behind. Petch the salt water and petch the leather. Pushing water off her arms and squeezing out the red skirt around her thighs, Sariana reached up and loosened the bun she had tied her thick black locks into. Her hair fell around her shoulders and cascaded down her back in an ebony waterfall, streaming behind her as she stormed across the deck and down the darkness of the stairs that led to the sleeping chambers of one moon kissed godling.

Drawing her blades as she walked, the brunette horsewoman swung hard at the table that was so offensive to her sight, once a cause for deep crimson to rise to her cheeks. The hardened steel bit into the wooden side, burying itself and holding fast. Swearing to herself, the drykas left the blade where it was, and vowed to end this. To have her say, to let him know just how much he had broken her honor and embarrassed her. Then to be on her way. No more of this up and down tide of emotions and feelings he caused in her. No more of this vulnerability.

"Get up you petching vagik, or I swear I will destroy everything in this piece of shyke boat!" Sariana yelled, kicking over a barrel used for temporary seating and glaring at the drawn curtain in the darkness.

"Your a gods be damned coward, and an ass!" The woman added, for good measure.

[Pash'nar]

The sound of angry feet on his deck didn't wake him. The sound of those same feet pounding their way down his creaky old stairs didn't wake him. The crack of steel slicing his meager table didn't wake him. The dull thud of his bachelor-style seating crashing into his hull didn't wake him. The yelling didn't wake him. No, he was already awake. Restless. Alone. Expectant. Watching as the night sky blurred into some pre-dawn color through the narrow windows in the roof of his cabin, leaning against his hull, anticipating yet another dawn. He knew who clambered wetly aboard his ship. He'd waited. He knew who fumed their way down his stairs. He had not expected Sariana to be armed, however, and the sound of a blade smashing into his table set his teeth on edge and curled pale fingers into his sheets in shock. He bit his lip and inhaled, but there was no angry sweeping of his curtain, only more kicking and shouting just out of his view. He finally exhaled the breath he'd been holding, letting a few extra heartbeats pass between her angry words and his own. His tone was much more tempered than the Drykas', cooled not by the expanse of his existence so much as the tumultuous thoughts he'd wrestled with since purposefully slipping away from Alvadas at the end of spring. His words were no less angry, only less vehement. "I ain't sleepin'. Petch, like you don't know I ain't awake, crashin' your way on m'boat an' thinkin' smashin' my stuff's gonna make everythin' better." The shard of moonlight slid from his bed, almost too caught up in his words to bother snatching a tattered blanket for privacy. Not that it mattered, but even in his ethaefal seeming, healing flesh glared pink against dusty opalescence. He covered himself in afterthought, free hand parting his curtain as he continued, still not raising his voice, "You'd better'a learnt some carpentry out there onna Sea'o'Grass if'n you wanna keep things up. Sure as shyke stinks y'ain't buyin' me a new one—you'll jus' spend th'whole petchin' season fixin' this one, one nail atta time." That was deadpan. The old casinor might as well have been an extension of his body. He felt wounded already. Cerulean eyes dragged themselves away from Sariana to his table and widened a moment. He didn't bother to hide the pain in his face at the blade lodged in his ship, but his aquiline features remained far from violent. His heart sank in his chest, an anchor in his stomach, and he leaned against the archway to his berth, unwilling to approach the swordswoman while she felt like destroying things. He seemed incapable of scarring, but he could be maimed like everything else that breathed. "I ain't a coward. I petchin' spoke my mind an' you wouldn't have it. Don't you come down here blamin' me for feelin's y'don't want like they're my petchin' problem. Ain't like I made decisions for you, 'specially since you made't clear what you didn't want from me. You got your own mind. It ain't a bad one, neither, but you sure seem to let other folks do a shyke-ton o'thinkin' for you 'stead o'workin' things out on your own." Carved jaw set, living muscles twitching to deny that he was anything but stone, the ethaefal tucked edges of blanket to force them to stay in place, crossing bare, shimmering arms over a bare, shimmering chest, "I ain't denyin' bein' an ass when it suits me, but, as sure as Leth's bleedin', woman, you can't jus' come carve up m'boat an' think that'll make it all better." It was all Pash'nar could do not to whine. He held it together, barely, full of a briny, liquid rage underneath his perfect celestial skin. He seethed, barely contained. What right did she have blaming him when she followed voices on a whim? He had no control over her feelings, her choices. They weren't bound by obligations or vows. "I left to think. Issat what you wanna know? I left. To petchin' think." He hissed between his teeth, unwavering with his gaze on the Drykas. He'd thought about plenty, but been reminded of so much more. Too much time spent with Svefra brought back old feelings, deep memories, and pain purposefully buried. The depth of his words was unfathomable, but he couldn't hide all of his hurt behind his contained anger. Everything under his moonlit surface was so much more raw than he'd felt in a long time, though it was by far not the fault of the swordswoman. No, she was only the salt in old wounds, "I came back, y'know. I did. If you yellin' an' smashin' tell me anythin', I'm th'only one who did any thinkin'."

[Sariana]

"Don't you dare, don't you dare!" The warrior growled between clenched teeth, storming across the wood floor with her remaining rapier pointed at the shimmering man as though she planned on running him through. Stopping a few feet before him, Sariana fought hard to bite back the shaking in her arm as she felt a fresh surge of humiliation run through her. As much as she tried to fight her emotions, drykas were a passionate and proud people and her nature seemed to win where she desperately wanted it to fail.

"Don't you petching talk to me like your better than me, Pash'nar. Because your not. You are a coward, for bringing up things that had nothing to do with Nira'lia and Sylkra. Just so you could justify yourself in front of them." Knuckles white as she gripped the weapon, the blue eyed woman suddenly threw the blade to the ground with a metallic clatter, fists balling at her sides as she struggled not to break her hand on his statuesque face again.

"I let no one make my choices for me, lest of all an obnoxious ass like you. I listen to people, take on board their advice and make my own decisions. And I show those people I care about some form of respect in doing so." Menacingly, her sapphire eyes flashed and she stepped closer as he grumbled about the ship.

"I could take it out on you instead, but I figured wood was probably better than flesh." It was hard to ignore the almost naked skin before her, so close she could feel the heat off his body. Unbidden thoughts came to the angry drykas, and forcibly she shut them out. She was angry at him, and this time he wouldn't turn it around on her. As he accused her of a lack of thinking things through, Sariana's eyes widened and her face flushed.

"You inconsiderate-" Lifting her hand, the young woman made to slap him, hurt and unwilling to allow the older creature to make her feel like a child. He might not hold all the blame for her actions, if any, but he did hold the blame for taking to her like she was an idiot...and humiliating her in front of their friends...and leaving her stranded in an unknown city with the realization that she had to ship her closest companion back to Riverfall. Even without their tryst on his boat, the bastard son of Leth could have acted like a friend. Friends didn't abandon each other in a time of need.

But of course, he had never said he was her friend either.

[Pash'nar]

The blade pointed at him was a bit too much, as he'd already had enough sharp objects near his person in a handful of tendays. The ethaefal winced and shifted his stance, turning his still-healing leg away from the angry charge and sliding his hands upward from his body defensively. He could hold his own in a brawl, but the Drykas had reach on him with the length of her weapon. He couldn't hide all the fear from his face, but it was mostly drown out by the rush of anger at her brash actions. "I ain't better'n'anyone, but for petch'sake, if Nira an' that wolf'r your friends, then they know where you wanna be, eh? I don't gotta justify m'self t'you'r to them. Don't they know why you left the Sea'o'Grass? They don't wanna help you get t'Avanthal? Or didja only tell that to me?" Indignant undertones flared up in his voice, a slow burning fire. Those women were supposed to be supporting her, but it appeared to him like she'd just been hiding from them. Surely, one of them was more responsible than himself. Why weren't they being her friends? Maybe she wouldn't be blaming him if there were others to care for her. Since when was this his job alone? She'd paid him coin for transportation, He knew about hiding. Her accusation crawled under his skin and he didn't flinch when she tossed her second rapier to his floor. He didn't budge from his defensive stance, however, cautiously watching her, "What've I got to prove? D'you think I expected you to still be 'ere after almost three tendays? Petch no, but 'ere y'are. I thought you'd be long gone, what with your sense o'purpose'n'all. What did I matter? Didja wait here for me?" He spoke with obvious jealousy, though that was not the full depth of his feelings. When Sariana stepped closer, he relaxed only a little, one raised hand moving to dig the heel of his palm into the almost-invisible twisted mark under his left collarbone. It could easily have been mistaken for a scar, pale like the rest of his opalescent skin, difficult to notice without truly looking. Only, he was incapable of scarring, but not incapable of being marked at all. He scowled at her threat to his person, not as intimidated once she was unarmed. "Wood ain't cheap. Flesh heals, mostly." The statuesque shard of moonlight drew himself up to his full height, ornamented head tilting down in the swordswoman's direction as he narrowed his stormy gaze. He took his own step closer, perhaps willing to take advantage of their intimacy as a way of avoiding physical harm, eyes briefly traveling over dark ribbons of wet hair and the cling of her clothing as she left puddles of seawater in his cabin. Still distracting, even when angry. He hated that. "Go on, then." He growled his response through his teeth, offering himself to her violence if it would make her feel better. No, he wasn't always considerate, but he hadn't entirely meant to be disrespectful on the street. He had been genuinely surprised to see her, caught off guard. Already burdened with feelings he'd thought he'd buried, seeing Sariana had only made everything seem that much worse. Why? Because he did care, in his own way, tentative and sore. Nira'lia's accusation of loneliness still stung. The ethaefal was quick to be friendly, but slow to make real, lasting friendships. So many layers of his own lifetime to sift through, he was loath to be completely open with others whose perspective was … shorter than his own. He didn't expect her to understand the price he felt he paid for each investment in someone else's life or the weight is own lifespan put on his shoulders. "But don't call me inconsiderate for leavin'. It was better that I did." Those words were hard to say, but the moonlit navigator meant them. His acts of friendship didn't meet the normal expectations others often had of him. No one seemed to understand he found the commitment difficult, not because he didn't enjoy the company of others, but because he struggled with grasping the point of relationships doomed to end without his permission. Had he known he would have had any feelings for the Drykas, he would have fled sooner. He wasn't willing to tell her it was too late, "I jus' didn't know I shoulda stayed 'way longer."

[Sariana]

"I ain't better'n'anyone, but for petch'sake, if Nira an' that wolf'r your friends, then they know where you wanna be, eh?.."

"No I-" She started to interrupt loudly, cut off by the fiery godling.

"...I don't gotta justify m'self t'you'r to them. Don't they know why you left the Sea'o'Grass? They don't wanna help you get t'Avanthal? Or didja only tell that to me?"

"Of cour-" Her brow drew together angrily and her heart thumped in her chest.

, "What've I got to prove? D'you think I expected you to still be 'ere after almost three tendays? Petch no, but 'ere y'are. I thought you'd be long gone, what with your sense o'purpose'n'all. What did I matter? Didja wait here for me?"

Hard blue eyes staring at the statuesque shard of moonlight as he glowed down at her, Sariana stood with hands balled into fists and mouth pursed. Her cheeks glowed red, a color that crept across her entire face and down her chest.

What if she had?

Her jaw twitched slightly as thought she wanted to say something, but couldn't bring the words out. He moved closer to her, and the brunette felt her anger waiver as his cerulean gaze swept across her once again soaked features. Must it always be she would be drenched to the bone every time she encountered the man?

Standing in silence after his outburst, Sariana felt the anger drain from her body. She didn't want to fight anymore. It was just not worth it. Not for a man who obviously didn't care what he left in his passing. Sucking her lower lip between her teeth, the young warrior nodded as her sapphire gaze turned down to look at the floor.

"Right." She muttered, her brow creasing slightly. Smiling in almost strange disbelief and scoffing quietly, Sariana moved toward the table and grabbed the hilt of her rapier, wrenching hard and pulling the blade from the wood with a soft thunk. Sheathing it, she moved to pick up the other and placed it back in its halter. Biting the inside of her lip, the drykas forced herself to look at Pash'nar, now that she had calmed down. The cover hung dangerously low on his hips, tempting her with an almost less-is-more kind of situation. Gods, she would not be swayed. It was clear that she should have avoided any sort of encounter with the ethaefal. So self absorbed and infuriatingly more-ish.

"Well, lucky that you decided what was better for me too when you up and left." Her voice was deceptively low and controlled, and nodding again, she ran her hands through her long onyx locks. Looking away again, Sariana scoffed again.

"I'll make it easier on you this time. I'll leave, and you can come and go as you petching well please." Turning her back on Pash'nar in all his glorious night time wonder, the brunette began to follow her footsteps back across the room. Stubbornly, the lump in her throat began to form with each step, but by all the Gods she would not be betrayed by her emotions again in front of the ethaefal. Why had she even come to his boat again? Had it been that familiar but long absent urge that had drawn her again, or was it really her anger? Karithus had probably fallen silent in his guidance because she had mistaken all these feelings and desires for his true purpose. At least now, she had no more distractions. No Pash'nar, and no Vrathetu.

Petch it all, she had to get off this boat before the lump in her throat overwhelmed her.

[Pash'nar]

The fallen celestial watched her go and said nothing. Her calm, contained retort had cut much more deeply than her anger had, and he stood there while the Drykas gathered her weapons and fled to the stairs that led back up to his deck, powerless for a handful of heartbeats. His anger did not dissipate so quickly, if only because the true roots of what drove him were twisted and buried so far into the dark soil of his existence. Starved, in a way, the fires of his own passions flared hot and bright when fed with the promise of fresh, new air. Cerulean eyes fluttered closed as the swordswoman creaked her way up the short set of stairs, struggling with that petching handle to his cabin. He exhaled. It felt like dust exiting his lungs—the dust of memories and mistakes—and it made his chest ache with the effort of holding it all in. His casinor swayed in the waves and he let Sariana step onto his deck in the fading darkness of pre-dawn. His skin crawled in anticipation of Syna's first rays. In the chimes marked out by the sounds of her movements, he let old memories crawl from shadowed places unbidden, heavy and cold like drowned flesh possessed. He'd let the sea swallow them all, hiding for so long. The waves and the passage of time had assuaged nothing, only coated the wounds in so much salt and brine. Preserved them even as he'd desperately tried to escape them. "Petch no!" Words rumbled through near-perfect moonlit flesh and Leth-carved chest, reverberating through his worn old hull. His eyes snapped open, lingering for a moment on the ragged scar in the wood of his table before he took to the stairs, two at a time. He'd almost made it to his door when the delicate balance between his rushed strides and keeping his blanket out from underneath his feet was somehow interrupted and he found himself falling forward. Hands flailed, fumbling for the door and he all but flew onto his deck, face-first. He crashed onto the worn old wood with an ungraceful grunt, only to struggle wordlessly to his feet, one hand grabbing half-heartedly for his blanket with somewhat limited success while the other wiped blood from his bottom lip. The bright red smear stood out against the dusty opalescence of his skin. He hissed angrily, licking his teeth, not looking at the Drykas right away while he continued to speak as if nothing disruptive and embarrassing had just happened, "You ain't gonna play my game back at me. It ain't fixin' nothin'. You can't jus' come 'ere an' smash my shyke an' then leave. Even I ain't done that t'you. Not in the same way, I s'pose." His voice was quieter, but hardly calm, still barely contained. Perhaps less indignant now that he'd tripped his way after her, any real dignity overboard and drowning. His words were more distant, though, as all he really struggled with felt so far away. Sariana was most certainly in the now, but so many of the issues she seemed to embody for the ethaefal were old, familiar currents, deep and cold. The moonlit sailor scowled, leaning against the sloping rise of his cabin above deck, "Look. You can get all petched outta shape'f that's all you're after. You ain't gone an' said you got any expectations o'me, but you sure as Syna's glare come off as havin' some. If you want somethin', say't." Not that he felt he had anything to give besides what he'd already offered. Whatever she wanted, if it was something more than the simple pleasures of his body, if it was something requiring more of himself, then he would surely be forced to claim he wanted nothing to do with it, with her. Those thoughts, those feelings, overwhelmed him in ways he'd rather not talk about, reminded him of time lost under so many tides. Pash'nar sighed and looked away from the swordswoman again, one pale back of his hand rubbing more of his blood from his split lip as he stared at the warming horizon off his casinor's starboard bow, "You wouldn'ta stayed 'ere if you didn't want somethin' … from me." The ethaefal's words were self-defeating and as far away as the thin line where the Suvan met the sky, "What has you convinced there's anythin' at all I've got t'offer th'likes of you?"

[Sariana]

Stepping onto the deck, Sariana drew a deep breath and another, and another. She needed to breathe otherwise she was going to loose it. Gods be damned, why did she come here? Why didn't she just cut her losses and move on. Had she needed to see him again, to do what? Do prove a point, to say goodbye? Moving towards the edge of the vessel, the brunette looked down at the waves rocking against the boat softly, and allowed herself to close her eyes. She recalled the gentle ebb and flow, not that long ago, when it had meant so much more.

The loud crashing as Pash'nar fell through his own cabin door made the drykas jump, her eyes flying open and turning to stare in shock at the shimmering creature as he stumbled to his feet. Frozen in surprise as she watched him, Sariana could see the blood on his lip and most of his exposed person. It was with little success the blanket hid his decadently carved body, and the woman's heart thumped wildly against her ribs again. He grumbled at her again, words of accusation and frustrating truths. Indeed, she had said as much to him. That she didn't want anything more than what they had. But, he offered her more. With his unexpected moments of tenderness, and his soul - deeper than he would allow himself to show.

Standing at the front of the ship, the young warrior couldn't help herself. Silence for a beat stood between them, before she snorted out a suppressed giggle. Hand wrapping around her stomach, the drykas let it all out, laughing heartily and gasping for air between bursts. Doubled over slightly, she couldn't stop the giggles, drawing in air and trying to restrain herself. Finally, her laughter eased off enough for her to speak.

"If I knew..." Shaking her head, the brunette leaned against the rail and looked across the dark water with a smile on her lips.

"You infuriate me, and you intrigue me. You make me feel safe and unsafe all at once, and you wrap me up in this mysterious back story that begs to be told. I just want to hate you, Pash'nar. With everything that is in me, yet I can't. I get weak when I see you and hear you, and seeing you limping. I saw you were hurt today, and I wanted to run to you." The woman turned sapphire eyes on him, hands resting on the rail.

"The whole time you were gone, I waited for a sign to leave. Nothing, not a thing. No urges, no messages on the wind, nothing. Till today. I saw you across the street and I felt that click. That falling of the puzzle piece when my path has been set. I haven't got expectations from you Pash, I just...don't know what to do with these emotions. Maybe, maybe all this travelling Karithus has me doing isn't just for fun. Maybe he was trying to open my eyes. Maybe he's trying to show me that feeling for someone is...not a weakness." A sudden sea breeze blew across the deck, sweeping damp tresses across her face and tugging distractingly at his covering. Sariana bit her lower lip as she continued to look at him, heart in her throat.

"But I don't want to fight anymore. If you want me to leave Pash'nar, I will understand. I won't like it, and Gods be damned I will cry like the stupid girl that I am. But I can't force you to feel the same as me."

[Pash'nar]

Pale fingers ran through his loose mane of silvery blue, sea foam hair, frustration faltering as Sariana laughed at his ridiculous fall. It was too difficult to remain stoic, to stay angry despite the depth of his hurt. She laughed for an awkwardly long time, long enough for the ethaefal to close the distance between them. He staggered as far as his mast, leaning a shoulder against it and pausing to adjust his improvised covering, useless as it might as well have been. He didn't bother to come closer, still cautious, and unsure of even his own intentions, tide pool gaze caught up for a few moments in the swordswoman's smile. He felt instantly disarmed by her laughter, struggling for a response to her quieter, gentler words. "I ain't gotta tale worth tellin', not really. Or, maybe I got too many to stand. I ain't sure, some days it feel like neither. I ain't someone you shoulda been waitin' on." Gods knew he didn't wait on anyone else. Not anymore. The shard of moonlight sighed, staring past the Drykas as he spoke, toward the horizon. One hand strayed back to his bare chest, fingers tracing familiar lines marred into perfect, opalescent skin. Feelings didn't make anyone weak—Pash'nar had come to realize one could be weak with or without them, though he often felt weaker because he avoided feelings at all. He just didn't want the ones he had; he hadn't wanted them for a long time. "Petch, I don't want you to go. Not really." He finally offered quietly, letting his ornamented head fall backward, against his mast to look up at the fading stars instead of continuing to take in all of Sariana on his windswept deck, feeling the weight of so many decades crushing his chest as he thought about her words. She didn't know. She couldn't understand. Her life was so short, so painfully short, that he didn't know where to begin or end anything he really had to say. She had stolen his words, anyway, when her anger had faded and she'd found a smile. "Fightin's never worth it. It ain't that I don't got any feelin's 'bout anythin', anyone—I do—it's jus' … it's jus'," he paused, voice catching in his throat as his resolve to be honest wavered. Admitting truths about himself was a risk he was loath to take. Revealing the reality of his inner workings, of everything beneath his sea-worn, swarthy, somewhat feral exterior was frightening for even himself. No one needed to see what over a century of feeling like a trapped celestial did to a man's thought process, did they? What it did to a man's willingness to even have a heart? Petch. Even he was tired of knowing, of living with some of his choices. Choices he couldn't take back. Choices lost to the ravages of time and regret. Choices he might not have ever made had he known how much they'd haunt him, how much they'd hurt—not just himself, but so many others. He shut his eyes for a moment, jaw clenching as he held at bay the flood of faces, vows, and lives not forgotten. Nails dug into marked flesh and he reluctantly tore his cerulean eyes from the last of the stars to meet the swordswoman's sapphire ones. He was still very far away, somewhere else, perhaps even stuck in some other time for a few chimes before his voice returned, "It's jus' that sometimes I think as though I've felt enough." Those words were heavy, dragged painfully over the rocky shores of decades. The ethaefal shoved away from the worn wood of his mast to cross the rest of the distance between himself and the Drykas, hand slipping away from his own skin to tangle itself in strands of dark hair blown by the sea breeze, "You make me jealous." Pash'nar all-but-whispered, pausing only to lick his wounded lip before continuing in weighted, hushed tones, "Willin' to trust voices an' see things through. I envy how bright that fire'o'faith is, even if it's in someone jus' as mortal as you. I put that out in my heart decades ago with my own two hands. An' as much as that trust seems foolish to me an' makes me angry—so angry—you carry't inna way that makes me regret where I've been an' wish I could do it all diff'rent."

[Sariana]

Watching the ethaefal as he struggled with his own emotions, Sariana couldn't help the swell of compassion in her chest. As old and wise as he was (or wanted to be) the celestial creature was still just a man. Just human...to a degree.

How many years had he endured life? Endured seeing friends and family pass on whilst he remained? The drykas shuddered slightly at the thought, her blue gaze lowering to the deck at her feet as the sea breezes swept across them. It was clear in his words, that Pash'nar did choose to keep his feelings distant - but not because he wanted to hurt her. But to protect himself. Sariana felt shame sweep across her features. She should have let him go the first time.

As he closed the distance between them, opalescent skin contrasted against her ebony locks, the warrioress lifted her eyes to meet his. She was caught by surprise at his words. Jealous, of her trust and dedication to Karithus? The idea nearly made her laugh. How could he be jealous of her...when by all appearances she seemed almost crazy. But she knew what he meant, felt his words, and as the statuesque creature fell silent the drykas smiled.

"Just because you lost faith somewhere in the past, doesn't mean you can't get it back. I loved Karithus like family, and its my love for him that gives me reason to trust in him. And my goals. You have time unbound in your hands, and a good heart. Regardless of what you do to me, and how infuriating you are, you are good deep in here." Lifting one hand from the railing, she reached up to tap his chest, before resting her hand there.

"Maybe you can find it again, with help, and hope." Her sapphire eyes stared into his own tide pool gaze.

"And kindness." Tilting her head to rest against his hand, Sariana smiled.

"And love."

[Pash'nar]

His expression faltered when she tapped his chest, and it was all he could do not to shy away from her touch, feeling obvious and exposed under the light of her sudden kindness. He was far from good. The pale scar-like mark on his chest was his constant reminder, but Sariana didn't know that, couldn't know that, shouldn't know that. He did wince when she said the word love, though he kept his palm against her face, struggling desperately to keep his expression from souring. He had friends. He cared deeply about a handful of people who were living and plenty more who were not. He supposed those feelings he held for them resembled love … but he had told himself he would never, ever love again. Not real love. Not the love he was afraid the swordswoman was implying. He'd made that mistake already. "It ain't jus' faith I lost. Not really." What the petch could he say? He felt like he was the one lost, abandoned. Not the other way around. Time had been his undoing, it seemed; it had not been his advantage. The more time he had on his hands, the further and further he felt as though he drifted form the truth, from who he felt he could have been. But wasn't. Maybe never could be. "It's more'n'that, but—" He looked away from Sariana, unable to keep holding her gaze, not with her smiling at him, so unknowing of the weight of his burdens. He longed to find answers. He did. He may have even longed to find some way to reconcile with his god, with Leth, deep in the darkness of his tumultuous consciousness. He longed for companionship that wouldn't fade, or perhaps at least he longed to come to terms with the curse of mortality others seemed to wither away from around him. How many of his wants were impossible? How much of what he yearned for was really anything he could accomplish, even in his near-eternal lifespan? The ethaefal sighed, hand lifting her head as he slowly returned his tide pool gaze back to her own, "—but I ain't good. I'm forsaken, far from Leth (on purpose, mind you), the god who let me slip from his fingers an' left me 'ere. I weren't always. I abandoned it all. Walked away. From everythin'. Some things I can't go back to. Some things're gone. Others, like Leth, petch, I doubt they're waitin' on me." He studied her face quietly, fingers trailing from her chin downward over tanned skin as he pulled his hand away. She distracted him in their proximity, clouded his thoughts with her presence. He wanted to believe that such things were possible, that some kind of redemption was never really as out of reach as it felt most nights, most days. He wanted to believe that kindness and love could rekindle the kind of hope and passion he once had. It all felt so far away, so impossible, so foolish. What was the point, again, when everything continued to waste away without him? "I ain't deservin' o'kindness, not from you, not from Leth, not after a life like mine." The shard of moonlight spoke with an unfathomable depth of sadness and regret, "Y'see whatcha want in me, or so y'think." Pash'nar's expression faded into something pained but honest, step "But didja ever think y'see what I let you see?"