🌼🐌 answered asks ! // unprompted. ( always accepting ! )
@greedbent sent: "Ari." His tone is sharp. Clean-cut. Leaving no room for even a slight misinterpretation of those two syllables. He swings his weight onto one hip, closer to his cane, and uses his free hand to open up his long coat. Like drawing back a curtain, Kaz exposes the area around his legs, and he jerks his head in a gesture to call the child to him. "Stay close. I don't want a repeat of last time." And there, he gives her a deliberate look to really nail down that point. "Hold on to me, if you have to." //Kaz not letting the sweet gorl get lost again u.u <3
IT'S DIRECT, IT'S COLD, AND IF HER NAME WAS SAID the same way by anyone else, Ari would assume she had somehow fallen into the Deepest Trouble. But that tone of voice was normal for Kaz—Ari was used to it, and it no longer alarmed her. If anything, having Kaz's attention filled her heart with great satisfaction. She liked it when he noticed her!
So she turned around to face the man who wore a severe expression, a brighter, happier one meeting it. But the smile that spread across her freckled face slowly shrunk as she understood The Offer that was made.
Kaz didn't like Close. It was one of many things made very clear when she had first fallen under his care, and Ari made quite the effort to avoid any and all types of Closeness: absolutely no hand - holding, certainly no hugging, DEFINITELY no cuddling …
Admittedly, this was a bit difficult for a child who felt love best through TOUCH—who was deprived of it all her short, lonely orphan life—but thankfully there were others that handled this hunger of Ari’s with great care, since Kaz could not.
That was her Understanding.
So why is he offering Closeness now … ?
" fff … for me, peas … ? "
Tiny fingers met at her chest, twiddling together, and all the sunshine in her face had melted away so the Shadow of Reluctance could take its place. Then, all the Whys came to mind—the notoriously intrusive and unsettling WHYS.
Is it because she had once done that BAD THING? That very, very Bad Thing? The Thing Kaz had asked her Not To Do?
Oh yes, Ari was now certain. THAT was the correct Why.
There were no terrible consequences for such actions—if you could bear the weight of a Disappointed Parent comfortably. Ari, however, could not; upsetting Kaz felt nearly as terrible as stepping on an ant—entirely accidental, but guilt can have a remarkably tight and uncomfortable grip around one’s heart and conscience despite that. Even if he could forgive her, could she forgive herself? After all, doing Bad Things makes you difficult to love. That was her Understanding. Therefore, Ari desperately wanted to avoid doing the Bad Thing ever again, and that apparently meant staying Close.
So Ari slowly shuffled forward. For a child that loved touch and hoped someday it would come from a parental figure—if she was ever LUCKY enough to have one to call her own—she sure looked far from happy about having to come near. But it wasn’t that she was uncomfortable with the Closeness.
Ari simply did not want to do anything that would hurt Kaz's heart.
She then fixed herself at his side, burying her tiny frame in the nook he created out of his coat for her. Her body curled, careful not to make Too Many Touches, and the additional offer to " hold on " was purposefully disregarded.
Ari lifted her anxious gaze to meet with Kaz.
" www … will I hur … I hurt mr. Kassie, peas … ? "