[Despite the fact that Hayame had somehow succeeded in cracking the crystal that had encased his body moments ago... There is a part of her that thinks she can not possibly be capable of making him open his eyes. After all... though she had succeeded at almost every mission set before her by the stablemaster, brought back every escaped jinba (but the last) that she had been tasked to hunt down, impressed countless potential buyers at Exhibition Day...
There had always seemed to be something that guaranteed her defeat.
Becoming a warlord's horse, cleansing the dishonor of her capture, accepting the possibility of a life lived freely amongst her fellow jinba, offering up her life in a leap into Matsukaze's arms, finding honor in the heads she took to prove her worth, saving the Kenoma who had put himself and his defection into her care... If she wanted it for herself... If she took the risk to care... Hayame has always failed.
But Estinien is right here, right in front of her, trapped in some sort of magical slumber and more than anything... Hayame wants not to fail again. Bow-calloused fingers that have been used for almost nothing but training, hunting, capturing, and killing splay over the bare skin of his chest and the chunk of shard embedded in it. He is so warm- or perhaps that is her, overheated with the stress of her indecision, feeling as if she is hyper-aware of every bead of sweat that forms on her brow or traces down her throat to trickle between her tightly bound breasts. Were they bound too tightly? She feels as if she cannot get enough air into any of her four lungs-
He stirs in ways both physical and not. Through the bonds of Firebrand and the direct touch against his shard, she feels what she thinks is him responding to her call, even though that, like everything about this, should be some insane and unrealistic fantasy. It's like a distant echo through water, though, as if he was still trapped somewhere and needed help to find his way back...
When she sees his lips begin to move and leans forward anxiously to receive his request... it is her name. When she sees his body move, it is his hand, twitching as if reaching out. Can she be so foolish and maidenly as to think that it means he needs her, or is it just that he needs anyone, someone... and she just happens to be here? Apparently she can be foolish and maidenly, to even consider such a thing as if it mattered... Estinien is one of the strongest in the Pleroma, the efforts of her revenge against the Regent fairly required him, he was a stalwart ally in battle if he'd stop flying away alone-
And he had been... kind to her, in a way that she had been able to accept. He had been the first to put a weapon in her hand and give her the power over her own life (or so it had felt, before she knew that aions would not die properly). He had reached out to her in communion when no one else had dared. When she had been contemplating slitting open her own belly on the way back from Venera... he hadn't pressed her with positivity or platitudes or offered her some sort of impossible seeming appeal for hope or faith, he had simply agreed with her. Living was hard. Choosing to survive and not just end it all was hard. So surely, she can... She can repay him. Just a debt, just a need to be even, nothing at all to do with feelings or gratitude or a desperate need not to lose one of the pitifully few people she has even slightly allowed to know her.
It takes Hayame longer than such a thing should take any woman. Any man, either, or any warrior. Her hearts are pounding in her chest, shame colors her skin with a slight flush, her tail is stiff and upright, twitching. But finally, her course of action is decided, and slowly, as if such gentle things were completely foreign to her (because they are)...
She moves her touch from his shard to his hand. Awkwardly, she curls her fingers around his, just tight enough to hold and lift. If her touching his shard roused him... but he needed to know what direction to "swim" away from the clutch of the Innocence that sought to trap him in peace and slumber... Now that he was searching, she must need to show him where to go.
Swallowing her pride, her fears, the customs of her upbringing, and the way she had learned to hate her own body... Hayame uses her other hand to tug her robe open slightly, to loosen the bindings beneath. Once it is done... she can inhale, shaky and too loud, she can fold Estinien's large, strong hand in hers... and then press it between her breasts, so that his bare knuckles might brush up against the arrowhead-shaped chunk of obsidian shard embedded in her skin.]
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There had always seemed to be something that guaranteed her defeat.
Becoming a warlord's horse, cleansing the dishonor of her capture, accepting the possibility of a life lived freely amongst her fellow jinba, offering up her life in a leap into Matsukaze's arms, finding honor in the heads she took to prove her worth, saving the Kenoma who had put himself and his defection into her care... If she wanted it for herself... If she took the risk to care... Hayame has always failed.
But Estinien is right here, right in front of her, trapped in some sort of magical slumber and more than anything... Hayame wants not to fail again. Bow-calloused fingers that have been used for almost nothing but training, hunting, capturing, and killing splay over the bare skin of his chest and the chunk of shard embedded in it. He is so warm- or perhaps that is her, overheated with the stress of her indecision, feeling as if she is hyper-aware of every bead of sweat that forms on her brow or traces down her throat to trickle between her tightly bound breasts. Were they bound too tightly? She feels as if she cannot get enough air into any of her four lungs-
He stirs in ways both physical and not. Through the bonds of Firebrand and the direct touch against his shard, she feels what she thinks is him responding to her call, even though that, like everything about this, should be some insane and unrealistic fantasy. It's like a distant echo through water, though, as if he was still trapped somewhere and needed help to find his way back...
When she sees his lips begin to move and leans forward anxiously to receive his request... it is her name. When she sees his body move, it is his hand, twitching as if reaching out. Can she be so foolish and maidenly as to think that it means he needs her, or is it just that he needs anyone, someone... and she just happens to be here? Apparently she can be foolish and maidenly, to even consider such a thing as if it mattered... Estinien is one of the strongest in the Pleroma, the efforts of her revenge against the Regent fairly required him, he was a stalwart ally in battle if he'd stop flying away alone-
And he had been... kind to her, in a way that she had been able to accept. He had been the first to put a weapon in her hand and give her the power over her own life (or so it had felt, before she knew that aions would not die properly). He had reached out to her in communion when no one else had dared. When she had been contemplating slitting open her own belly on the way back from Venera... he hadn't pressed her with positivity or platitudes or offered her some sort of impossible seeming appeal for hope or faith, he had simply agreed with her. Living was hard. Choosing to survive and not just end it all was hard. So surely, she can... She can repay him. Just a debt, just a need to be even, nothing at all to do with feelings or gratitude or a desperate need not to lose one of the pitifully few people she has even slightly allowed to know her.
It takes Hayame longer than such a thing should take any woman. Any man, either, or any warrior. Her hearts are pounding in her chest, shame colors her skin with a slight flush, her tail is stiff and upright, twitching. But finally, her course of action is decided, and slowly, as if such gentle things were completely foreign to her (because they are)...
She moves her touch from his shard to his hand. Awkwardly, she curls her fingers around his, just tight enough to hold and lift. If her touching his shard roused him... but he needed to know what direction to "swim" away from the clutch of the Innocence that sought to trap him in peace and slumber... Now that he was searching, she must need to show him where to go.
Swallowing her pride, her fears, the customs of her upbringing, and the way she had learned to hate her own body... Hayame uses her other hand to tug her robe open slightly, to loosen the bindings beneath. Once it is done... she can inhale, shaky and too loud, she can fold Estinien's large, strong hand in hers... and then press it between her breasts, so that his bare knuckles might brush up against the arrowhead-shaped chunk of obsidian shard embedded in her skin.]