#i ache

he’s happy to be by your side as you take a step up. you’re smiling, the light of the venue highlighting the gloss on your lips.

simon smiles. he tries to at least.

he sees your hand meeting.. a different man’s hand. simon tries to smile harder when you grin, looking at him and turning to your husband to be.

simon’s hands are clasped, a little too cold for his liking. your warmth gone, given to another man.

his heart shattered, his smile too wide. this is the closest simon will ever get to having you.

"He gives you extra meat, you know." "What?" Shadowheart flicks her eyes towards Gale's tent. "I saw him hesitate once, at the cookpot." She mumbles into her wine. "Before he picked bites of fish out of the stew into your bowl." Tav flexes her hand, summoning a current to dance between her fingers. It feels kinder than it did off the nautiloid, she realizes, now a sting through her nerves where had been a hot spear before. The cleric raises a knowing eyebrow. "So, either he's sweet on you," she says, laced with play and bite, "or found you so pitiful as to inspire special treatment. Like a starved, wet stray out in the cold." Tav frowns, turning over her wrist, examining the lines that bulge out of her skin knuckle to arm. She feels she ought to be turning something about this over in her head, but it's just out of grasp through the fog and dead bits of her. "I can't imagine either of those to be the case, Shadowheart. The only thing any of us are worried about right now is our own mortality, he's no exception."

Nevertheless, during her watch that night, she catches herself pacing tighter and tighter rounds about the camp until she'd worn grooves into the dirt directly in front of Gale's tent. When she stops, she notices that she's worried dents and scratches into her fingertips and palms, as if to threaten to break and spill out through the little lines in her flesh. This is foolish, she chastises herself, spreading her hands and drawing in a breath with which to commit this ridiculousness out of her mind for good, "Oh! It's only you." A pair of curious eyes peers out of the tent flap. Caught. She opens her mouth and hopes an apology for waking him might form by itself, but when he steps out of the tent to greet her, she finds only soft relief on his face. "I thought some manner of creature caught my delectable scent and had came to devour me," he jokes, and suddenly she feels dizzy. Suddenly she sees past him, spiraling into a reality where she can feel the warmth of his red in the webbing of her fingers and taste his rust under her tongue. "Good that I don't have to wake the whole camp putting my would-be assailant to-- Tav, are you alright?" She blinks the fantasy away, hungry with shame, that will not happen again, her heart still pounding as though it could lurch out of her chest to get to him itself. She tried to breathe, to slow down, but out the worry came anyway, lest she choke on it. "Are you afraid of me?" "Well, not in this form, certainly," he smiles, "But tadpoles aside, I meant something of a bear or perhaps..." He trails off when a bead of sweat drips down her temple to catch his eye. Realizing she isn't joking, he flits a glance back and forth across her face, scanning her in hopes of understanding. "Tav, have I done something to make you feel this way?" "The stew, I-- someone said--" She stutters, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes, willing away the ache. Being fully dressed next to him in his night clothes did not make her feel any less exposed, nor did the quiet in between their breathing. He was offering her the space to compose herself, and she could not tolerate the grief creeping into his face the longer she took. "I... remarked that nobody in this camp dares be near me. And then someone mentioned the generous portions of meat you give me, and I could only conclude-- if this is some sort of placation, I can assure you it is not necessary, I don't need, gods forbid, offering or bribe to--" "Tav."

His hands on her shoulders are gentle. When he smiles at her, there is no fear in him, and the sorrow in his eyes does not shift. Pity, then? She knows the reputations between weave-wielders don't exactly spring from a font of fondness, but pity? "I do not think you a mindless beast to be pacified. I would hate to have you believe I see you that way." He allows himself to slip off of her shoulders when he feels them relax under his hands. "Our parasites have done something unknowable to all of our respective strengths, but the pain you cast through isn't from the tadpole. The others don't present that, and I'm not surprised they don't recognize it. I have seen what happens when one's body is too weak to withstand the weave, and it is deeply unpleasant. It is not a fate befitting you." "So, not a beast, just... a weakling?" She thinks she ought be irritated when he chuckles, but it's a disarming sound, and she permits him to take her wrist in his hands all the same. Still gentle, but he does not handle her as though she might shatter, turning her arm in observation the same as she did before, her nerves buzzing everywhere he touches. She's not certain which of them is doing it, or if what she feels is happening at all. "When we met that first day, you looked awful. And," he emphasizes, watching her brow contort, "because I'm perceptive enough to see that I'm not making myself clear, Tav, I'm not scared of you, and I don't pity you, I'm grateful. You were gracious to tend my... complicated ailment, in spite of the frankly insufficient explanation I was able to offer you. This is not even the least of which I owe you in return."

Softening her resolve, she has run dry of skepticism. She has no real reason to disbelieve him, nor does he have a reason to lie. It wasn't subtle, the way in which her muscles had filled out in the time since the crash. Besides, it's not lost on her that this is the longest unbroken contact she's had with anyone in... well, at least since she woke up on that ship. Perhaps it's a cruelty to them both to let the comfort simmer, but in such scarcity, surely just a little won't destroy them. "You stopped waiting for us to come fill our own bowls," she says. "I didn't think much of it, besides musing that someone might have become too eager and taken more than their share. I certainly didn't expect it to be me." "I was hoping you wouldn't notice, but I should have known better than to think no one would, camp full of gossips and busybodies," he grins. "For one so bothered with her own privacy, Shadowheart is terribly nosy." "Oh, gods, thank you for understanding," Tav says, swallowing a laugh herself. "She made me swear not to name her. Said people become expectant when they realize how much you know." Gale hums at this, seemingly drifting away in thought for a moment. When his eyes refocus, a stiffening in his arms betrays the fact that he's realized how long he's been holding her. "A philosophy surely born of experience, if perhaps a bit cynical," he says.

He lets go of her, returning her hand much more awkwardly than having taken it. She shakes off the sudden chill that sets in where his hands had warmed her skin, clearing her throat. "You, ah, said you've seen something of this condition before? Do you think whatever caused this weakness might be the culprit behind my missing memories, too?" Gale sighs, shaking his head. "Now that, I can't say. Whatever happened to you doesn't appear to have been of a magical nature, and I am no physician to be able to guess at maladies of an earthly one. Would that this little adventure of ours might find solutions to both our afflictions along with our tadpoles, yes?" In the air between them hangs a stale hesitation. He's right-- they have business to attend. Their personal matters have little bearing on the task at hand, and there is little room to turn down any kindness offered. But here in this moment she allowed herself a little spark of hope to form, and she was loathe to let go of it. Their exchange of good-night pleasantries stilted and awkward, Gale fiddles with his tent closure a little longer than reasonable. As Tav returns to her rounds, she pauses, turning back to face him. "Gale?" "Yes?" "You're a good cook." He smiles like the sun. "I know."