Where is the light?

"Hot?"

He presses the back of his hand to his forehead, his brows furrowed as he lowers himself to sit, locks of crimson hair falling into his face as he closes his eyes to the cooling breeze she conjures up, his nose twitching at the odd scent it carries.

"No."

Susurr moves to take a seat beside him, raising a hand to brush the locks of red away from his forehead so that she may gauge the temperature of his skin herself.

His tone indicates that he would be a bit sardonic if he had the energy to put towards bickering, but he does not, the heat beneath his skin and the tension in his belly robs him of his repartee. He lets out a breath, seemingly unaware of how he tilts his head to press into her hand, or how his wings fluff out in display.

Indeed, he is hot, burning up really, but his skin gives off this heat regardless of where she touches him.

"It is not unheard of."

Perhaps he is not plagued by the conventional definition of illness, but there exist spells, curses, dark majicks that might manifest in a similar fashion. Not that she can very well imagine how in the world he would've become afflicted by any such thing.

With a breath through her honey gold nose, she presses a palm flatly to his forehead, his cheek and then the back of his neck...he really is burning up...

"...I think you are hallucinating Tarakiel. I do not wear perfume. "

He doesn’t finish the sentence, the words trailing off as she touches him, pressing into her hand like a house cat. He tries to remember anything that could have brought this malady on, but his mind comes up blank. One moment he had been fine, and the next…

“I know. That is why I asked, you smell so…”

He lacks the proper word to express his sentiment. Warm, welcoming? Words that someone who doesn’t know Susurr like his does would scarcely use to describe her. He leans in, close, his nostrils flaring and his brow furrowed as though he might ascertain exactly what it could be.

Perhaps he is hallucinating, for the images that fill his mind. All of her. Her face twisted in ecstasy, murmuring sweet words in exhaustion. Their weekly report comparisons, except with her hand resting atop her slightly swollen stomach. A little fledgling, with crimson hair and rams horns.

His eyes shoot back open, wide, his pupils dilated, and he leans back, his wings now maximally fluffed and his cheeks burning golden.

He is right, of course, it would be highly unusual for any such misfortune to befall somebody of his standing, with his perception, awareness and extensive worldly experience. It just doesn't compute. So the question remains; what could possibly be causing this feverish state of affairs? For once, she is just about stumped for plausible ideas.

Tipping her head to the side, she observes the way that he moves into her every touch, not unlike an attention starved companion mutt looking for a proper petting. Before she can make a sarcastic quip about his exceedingly unusual behavior, Tarakiel dips forward, so close that she can feel the heat radiating off his skin against her face, and she freezes.

By the time he finds the wherewithal to pull back, she is almost as flushed as he is, her own wings fanned out to display all the soft pastels of her plumage.

"Hot?"

He presses the back of his hand to his forehead, his brows furrowed as he lowers himself to sit, locks of crimson hair falling into his face as he closes his eyes to the cooling breeze she conjures up, his nose twitching at the odd scent it carries.

"No."

Susurr moves to take a seat beside him, raising a hand to brush the locks of red away from his forehead so that she may gauge the temperature of his skin herself.

His tone indicates that he would be a bit sardonic if he had the energy to put towards bickering, but he does not, the heat beneath his skin and the tension in his belly robs him of his repartee. He lets out a breath, seemingly unaware of how he tilts his head to press into her hand, or how his wings fluff out in display.

Indeed, he is hot, burning up really, but his skin gives off this heat regardless of where she touches him.

"It is not unheard of."

Perhaps he is not plagued by the conventional definition of illness, but there exist spells, curses, dark majicks that might manifest in a similar fashion. Not that she can very well imagine how in the world he would've become afflicted by any such thing.

With a breath through her honey gold nose, she presses a palm flatly to his forehead, his cheek and then the back of his neck...he really is burning up...

"...I think you are hallucinating Tarakiel. I do not wear perfume. "

"Hot?"

He presses the back of his hand to his forehead, his brows furrowed as he lowers himself to sit, locks of crimson hair falling into his face as he closes his eyes to the cooling breeze she conjures up, his nose twitching at the odd scent it carries.

"No."

Susurr moves to take a seat beside him, raising a hand to brush the locks of red away from his forehead so that she may gauge the temperature of his skin herself.

"Hot?"

"You are soooooo....mmmmmh....you know...."

Makes several vaguely threatening (?) Hand gestures.

She does not look at him. Not initially. The knowledge that he is there is enough to make her hands tremble like the fragile branches of a withered willow, the sight of him might make her come apart altogether, she fears.

So, there she stands, a few feet in front of the pink flowerbeds lining the window panes on either side of the garden doors, clutching her hands to her chest as if in some paltry effort to barricade her ever frangible heart from the outside world. Trepidation in her fitful eyes.

Be normal. Be normal.

There are no good words that she can think of, so she resigns herself to blurting out the first thing that comes comes to her mind.

At some point those words ought to have become meaningless to him. So many repetitions and so many disappointments of the hope they raise in him. Yet they had always been sincere, at least in the moment, even if in the next she had been swept up in her sickness and those apologies had amounted to much less than nothing.

So he had always forgiven her, likely always would, even if in this particular instance he truly has no idea what part of anything she is actually apologizing for. Contrition had not been his expectation, given the hissing spitting creature that had been his daughter, stained with his ichor as she’d been when he’d dragged her here quite against her wishes.

A hand reaches out, palm up, not quite to beckon but a very familiar bidding, the ever-present gesture that always meant his girls are more than welcome to come to him, to his knee and his embrace, no matter how old they’d gotten.

Digits twist into the pristine, white fabric of her tunic, perhaps the first article of clothing she has worn in decades that does not carry any detectable undertones of blood or gore in it's threads. If not for the harrowed expression on her face, she might not look terribly dissimilar to the delicate, ashen fledgling she once was, barefoot in the grass, fresh out of Sunday school.

She...really wishes he would have given her more time to prepare herself. When she had brought the matter up with Emilia she hadn't quite been expecting the whole arrangement to fall into place in a matter of minutes. Of course she is glad that he was ready and willing to see her but it's...it's a lot; all at once.

"No...no...I'm sorry....I'm sorry...I'm normal..."

The offered hand, while tempting, goes untouched, opting instead to hide her face in her palms, wishing she had something appealing to show for all the time she had spent here.