#gently holds them...

RE  :  &  @bakehyo.

SHE IS  ...  EXHAUSTED.  The product of every war that has been waged since the moment she had stepped foot out of that carriage, what seems so long ago. From the coils left behind by Bahamut to the very edges of the universe they now had to traverse, despair and death had licked at her heels all the way. And even still, she cannot comprehend the weight that must be placed upon her comrade’s shoulder  :  for whatever the Scion’s themselves had been made to bear on their backs for the sake of greater good, the pressure was only that much more pronounced for the Warrior of Light. She would never deign to belittle her role in these battles, nor her efforts to build her character as had been spurned in the First, but she would find it hard pressed to miss the irony in her being the one to receive comfort from the hero of it all.

“There have been a great many times I’ve almost found all of it too hard to bear.”  Earnestly, Alisaie raises her arms to make a rather dramatic show of her statement, flinging them into the space before her with a grimace. They fall back over her knees almost as quickly and she slumps. Old Sharlayan is so blissfully quiet at night. She’s beginning to enjoy the silence more, the longer these fights rage on. After a drawn out sigh, she looks over at her, now. Her eyes narrow as she’s lost in thought.  “But there’s always a reason to bear it, nonetheless. Hard as pushing forward may be, harder still would it be to give up. On this world, on our plans, on each other.”

She had been stubbornly independent, once. At times, she still is. But things had changed since then. She regards her once more with a crease in her brow  :  for a moment, her exhaustion is lost to concern.

“It’s not me I’m afraid for. It’s you.”  She doesn’t think it a shocking statement. Though she may never be so good as her brother at putting her feelings to words, she cared for Riku, loved her even, in the same way she loved Alphinaud. The Scions had become such dear friends, but it always seemed her family was cursed to bear the greatest burdens. It scares her.  “Sometimes I find myself wondering if this will be it. If this will be the fight that you decide it is all too much for you to carry. Try as we might to lighten your burdens, the world has always had its eyes on you. If you were to buckle beneath that despair—“

Alisaie falls silent. There’s much left unsaid there, but she does not know how to say it. So she bows her head, in solemn what-ifs.