it's about a man with two souls

Her fists banged against the metal that caged her, fingers trying to pry the metal open. Tears prickled her eyes as her efforts were fruitless. She couldn’t even change her form to be smaller and try and escape the metal was digging into her wings-! The seelie was merely minding her own business when she’d accidentally set off a trap, ending with her wings between the teeth of a trap and one of her own legs.

By coincidence, he was actually on his way over to her home to see if she had any asphodel he could use when he came across her trapped. No fae was unfamiliar with the concept of poachers (their wings were a highly desired item among dark witches), but Oscar hadn’t thought there were any nearby. Apparently he’d been wrong in that assumption.

“ Don’t you think these flowers brighten the place up? ”

“They certainly are… colourful,” Whitley tried, setting the potted plant down beside the last he’d taken in. The last one was wilting, looking far more depressing in comparison to the plant beside it. He’d started humouring Oscar’s attempts and took a few in, but he could never seem to keep them alive. At first it was from a lack of trying. Somehow eventually, he felt guilty. He didn’t see the point in it all, but Oscar was getting them for him for some reason beyond him. He’d started trying to keep them alive, but he could never seem to succeed.

“I have a hard time believing that,” Whitley answered simply. Perhaps people just had a different understanding on the word ‘friend’ than Schnee’s did. Either way, they didn’t really.. have friends. Just people who were beneficial to them.

Glancing up at the question, Whitley took a moment before setting his foot down again, straightening himself out. “I’m fine,” Whitley answered, somewhat tense. No.. her certainly didn’t feel comfortable at all.

Eyes glancing up at the rose in the man’s hair, Whitley shrunk back slightly. It had to be dirty. The bugs and parasites that crawled on it. The ones that were probably still in it. How could anyone just… put that in their hair? For no good reason.

Forcing himself to look back at Oscar and ignore the rose, he cleared his throat before explaining himself. “I’m just not particularly fond of plants, or anything attached to them. I’m more use to Atlas’ climate. It’s uncomfortable.” Well… it wasn’t an utter lie. All of that was true. But he’d made sure to leave out such a key element to it all. It probably sounded rather pathetic like that…

Glancing away, Whitley straightened his jaw, frowning down at the leaves on the path. “I also have my personal reasons.”

Oscar glanced up with scrunched brows. Why was the so unbelievable. Sure, Weiss could come off as rather... prissy sometimes, but according to Ruby the heiress was far less uptight now than she’d been when they first met. He wasn’t certain about when Whitley had moved to the asteroid himself, but he’d be willing to bet it hadn’t been too long ago. Oscar wasn’t a good friend of Weiss’ and even he could see that she wasn’t really the Ice Queen everyone liked to hype her up as. Maybe she put up an act in front of her brother though? While living on Mistral, he’d heard occasionally heard people about the family behind the Schnee Dust Company, so perhaps Weiss just put up an act around Whitley to fit the Schnee image.

Whitley most certainly did not look fine. Oscar wasn’t the “I can read you like a book” type of person, but it’d be difficult to not pick up on Whitley’s body language. It looked like he was pulling away from the garden and shrinking in on himself. Icy irises flashed around the plants, never managing to stay focused on Oscar for too long.