#very normal!

Note: judging by the audio I extracted and the conversation file, Bellara and Taash don't have lines for that event (if they actually have lines and I missed them, pls lmk).

Rook: That scent… I can't place it. Neve: For a moment… it smelled like Dock Town after it rains. Lucanis: Coffee. Like Illario and I smelled in the kitchen where we grew up. But that cannot be right. Harding: That's my ma's apple cake! But… how? Davrin: That's smoke from my old clan's campfire. But… how do I even know that? Emmrich: It's reminiscent of the mortuary's perfumes, but… ah. Of course. Emmrich: There's small enchantments around this place. From the old elves, welcoming their kindred home.

@1stdaughter / 🙂‍↕️

the  bathroom's mirror  becomes  his  stability, his  arm  thrown   up  against  it  so  that  his head  can  rest  on  his  forearm  there.  if he holds his breath against the pain it does nothing but add to the growing headache which builds and swells and makes his heartbeat loud in his ears. if he exhales too harshly, the expansion of his lungs make him all too aware of bruised things they're housed beneath. leon can't say how long he's been there by the time that he catches the ever-familiar creak of his bedframe. he's almost lulled into some sense of security — he'd just missed her footsteps beneath his own pulse. it's that quiet concern in her tone when his name falls off her lips. it has him opening his eyes to smudges where his arm has slid, where fingers have drawn paths.

his reflection is marred by it all, he doesn't linger long there. instead he finds her over his shoulder, clear and reaching. her fingers against his arm, the way she comes around to put small of her back against the counter. like she can press herself between it and him — like he can lean on her. he wills himself to straighten out. it's hard to smile, however slight, when dropping his arm from the mirror is a gargantuan effort that makes him want to grit his teeth and steel his jaw. he manages something close. he even finds her tongue, and this question is at it's core genuine, ❛ trouble sleeping? ❜ when all he gets is a frown, something that sounds to swimming ears like an 'i guess', he decides quickly on pushing forward.

he doesn't shrug her off entirely, but he's faster than her when he reaches to the side for bandages he'd been fighting with before becoming disoriented. he's faster than her when he turns on the water to clean white stained red. his head hurts. his arm is an angry, throbbing thing. his heart seems impossibly faster with her close, and when he looks at her, he knows she's not buying it. ashley graham is a lot of things. stupid isn't one of them. she would've heard the clattering of the pill bottles knocked over in his attempts to open them, the frustrated curse that slipped from him. the sounds of rifling through cabinets though he tried to move quietly to avoid this.

among her many boons, he counts this: she's a quick learner. when he goes for the rag discarded near to his shirt, there's a hand gripped 'round his wrist, CYCLE OF WHITE STAINED RED CONTINUED, and it crosses his mind that were he well, it may very well have been the light pop of her hand atop his. almost feels like she did anyway: would you cut it out? ❛ ashley — ❜ on the tip of his tongue is rebuttal, the insistence that despite all evidence saying otherwise, he's okay. he can do it himself. he wants to urge her to lay back down, that he'll be there in just a minute. he doesn't make it that far. i'm trying to help. he's seen the look paired with it before: the determination, the want to do good, to pull her weight. maybe she can't see that this isn't hers. he thinks it's more likely that she just doesn't care whether it is or not.