[With half-open eyes he watches her back, hand moving from caressing her cheek to the beautiful line of her neck.]
Metal? Does she find them easy to use? Norns, but I was lucky to have this thing. Half the time I forget it's even there. [There's genuine curiosity in his tone and expression, no hesitation at all.]
[Somewhere along the line, she has grown able to enjoy these quiet moments, to not blush or shirk instinctively from intimacy as she once had. At least- when they have the luxury of privacy, anyway. Her own fingers still hover over the... Uru, he called it. Apparently not a metal as she was familiar.
Curiously, she finds where flesh and dwarf-make meet, thumb rubbing gently, distracting.]
She uses a "typewriter" with them fine, and with a mane comb she is... adroit enough. I suppose.
[This time when she blushes it is oddly enough from admitting that she had a near stranger brush her hair, rather than the way it's all too easy to stretch her neck out to the touch of his fingers, pressing cheek to pillow and closing her eyes briefly against the sight of the ring flashing softly in the light.]
[His fingers at her neck are distracted from their downward path at her caress at the juncture of arm and uru. A sharp inhallation interrupts him as he goes to speak.]
The- ones I've known tend to prefer their own kind. They've their own realm, so they seldom visited Earth.
[He awake enough now to wonder at her bringing up the topic.] Are you considering getting your own arm to match, now you see how there are many of us with such fine accessories?
[The slightest change in breathing, and she slows. Considers- it was not of pain... so she resumes her touch, but gentler. Wants to perhaps smile, at that question... but her dark eyes fall instead on her left hand, that not a day past had been broken and half-mangled. She had worried if she would be able to hold a bow properly again. If it would course with infection, and need to be cut off, like she'd seen of her world's soldiers. (Like she'd seen at the flensing post, with jinba who refused to be broken.)
That fear had been the only thing that made her break with her usual distaste for magic in her body and seek on of Hathaway's sorcerers.]
... perhaps for a moment I did.
[Even with her desire to be considerate, to respect his secrets as he had always respected hers... it seems so uncouth to not speak plainly. He would hardly need answer if he did not wish to, so-]
I simply... wondered. How it is you came to need such a thing.
[The idea of someone as strong as he, stronger than anyone in her own world, being injured so... it is hard to imagine.]
He's quiet for so long that she might think he's gone back to sleep, if she doesn't see the thoughtful look on his face. How to explain it, he wonders. There's so much that had led to his encounter with Malekith--]
Have you heard of the race of elves? [His voice is deliberately distant. It was not so long ago that this had been a raw wound, physically and emotionally. He's not sure what emotions will stir as he speaks of it.
But she should know about this. And the telling of it will reveal other things he has been avoiding.]
[He stills, and she waits. Watches his face, to see what he will do. Even if he were to reject speaking of it... she could hardly blame him. But it seems foolish to not ask now, when she has done all but put it into words.
So she waits, and her thumb still slides gently along his arm in silent rhythm until he speaks again.]
... only with ALASTAIR. They have long ears and slim frames.
[At least, those were the only particular characteristics she had found terribly different from humans with the one she had met in passing. His world's... she settles into the sheets to find out.]
The same. [His fingers resume their motion on her neck, now slow and distracted rather than attentive.]
In the nine realms there are two kinds of elves. The light elves- which are most like those who have been on our team- who dwell in the realm of Alfheimr, and the dark elves who live on Svartalfheimr. They were related, I think, long ago in the distant past before the light elves devoted themselves to the good, pure things of this world and the dark elves turned to mischief and evil and treachous things. [Usually Odinson laments that he hasn't his brother's skill at tale-telling. But for now he finds it fitting. There is no good way to tell this tale.]
Among these is one by the name of Malekith. He is the darkest and most twisted of all of them- and the most ambitious. When I first encountered him, many years ago, he was in the service of Surtur, the demon lord of the fire realm Muspelheimr, and he was content to do his bidding and wreak havoc on the peoples of Earth. I overcame him them, and he was locked away. For good, I thought.
He surfaced again a few years ago and set the nine realms into a war in which my allies and I barely won. He escaped our grasp then- [Odinson cannot help the grim tone of his voice. If they'd captured Malekith then, so many things would have been different.] and he made many alliances with other evil men and beings before I next met him.
[But Odinson was not the same when they next met, and he isn't sure where to begin that. Silence falls as he considers it, steeling himself for what must be told.]
[It is a tale the like of legend- and maybe that is fitting, for a god of storms, and the world he has told her of, that is full of things that to her are yet fantastical. She follows it as best she can with the understanding she has, comparing to things she knows in order to make sense of it.
A part of her almost wins out in desire to move closer, to fit against his chest as if the heartbeat there would tell her more than his face might, but that was a coward's way- she has asked, and so she will watch as he tells it. Prove that she is worthy to hear it.
An enemy banished, yet returned, more powerful than ever, who was wily enough to avoid capture, to scheme-
Hayame does not know the right words, she feels she almost never does. But she tries.]
Aye. [It is hard to think of it. Is the shame that surfaces because he'd lost the arm, because he'd lost the hammer-- or because of the way he'd behaved at the time? It is hard to disentangle his feelings about it.]
But before that is told, there is something else I must share. Something which happened between that war of the realms and when I next faced Malekith the Accursed.
[And now that it comes to it, he does not want to speak.] You recall the hammer I found on the mothership, Mjolnir? I told you of Thor and his adventures with her, then. [A pause, and with a heaviness-] Of my adventures with her. [The pain fills him, anger and loss almost as fresh as they'd been, what? Only a year ago it felt like. The blink of an eye.
All of a sudden he feels crowded. He wants to pace, he wants to fight, he wants to do anything but lie here and relive his memories.
He draws his hand away from her, clenches it uselessly on empty air at his side.]
It was between those two encounters with Malekith that I lost her. That I gave up the name Thor.
[She recalls. Nods into the pillow, and thinks of where she had found him. When she had tried to lift the hammer he had been staring at, and found herself unable to despite knowing it should be possible with her strength. She remembers the words he had read aloud for her- Whoever holds this hammer, if they be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.
But she has only known Odinson. It is yet strange, to consider him by that name though she knows he must have lived centuries by it. The way he had spoken of it made it seem as if the hammer itself had chosen to be lost... and she tries to believe it, because he has never lied to her. His hand draws away, and she doesn't pursue it. Shame and anger are feelings she knows... very well. Perhaps better than any other. Some of the few emotions she can spot easily on a face, or in a heart.
What she did not quite expect was the empathetic pang in her own, to see it on his face. Though she does not think he will take it, (she herself might not, she knows), she just makes sure to leave one hand free, palm up, in silent offer on the mattress between them.
It is easier now to imagine then how the story ends- that without the hammer made by those dwarves that he had not been as strong, perhaps, not at his full potential, and so a dark creature had taken advantage of such plight. But in between...
Hayame does not put the wonder into words, though. Not this time. It is for him to decide if he wants to tell more now- it is clearly something deep, something painful- and though she invites the telling, looking clearly into his eyes unflinching... she does not demand it.]
I- [Her eyes find his, and finds he cannot bring himself to tell her of Gorr-- and of how a God finds he has lost everything he once clung to.
He has only told this much to Loki, who understood some of what it meant to him. There's less to explain to one with a similar nature. Explaining it to Hayame- there's more he'll have to share, fewer shortcuts.]
Forgive me. I cannot tell that part yet. [He looks away, seeing her hand open and waiting for him.
Oh, by the Norns. He does not deserve this. He takes her hand all the same, brings their fingers together.
He hopes she will understand.] Suffice to say-- in losing Mjolnir I lost myself, and my reason. I was angry and reckless. There was nothing I wouldn't have done to get her back.
[There is no resentment when Hayame shakes her head, curling fingers that had been broken around his, spine curling likewise in mimicry. She feels so small in this human body compared to him, when she wishes to be larger, to be... something comforting. The temptation to take the ring off is there again, even as she focuses instead on him.]
I offer you no forgiveness. There is nothing to forgive.
[Had he not given her the same courtesy and those same words? She has told no one everything. Told him more perhaps than others, but there was yet shames she kept to herself. The shame of admitting aloud rather than implying that she had once served humans at the expense of her own kind. Of admitting the extent of her failures, and how she had brought the threat of ruin on the heads of those who had taught her of the possibility of freedom. Why it was so desperately important to her to have Hathaway fulfill their promise to her.
There are things it is hard for a person to say. Even if that person were a god.
She thinks to say something else. That she was perfectly content with Odinson, even if he had once been Thor. That the self he is now, for all that... still seems enough to her. But it all sounds either ignorant or too simple in her mind, and so she hopes it will simply be understood with the kiss she brushes against his knuckles, as she slinks back closer, muttering a sullen "now if only this bed was larger" under her breath as she tries to find a comfortable way to tangle up with him that made it easier to forget she had two legs.]
[In silent thanks he turns his head to press a kiss to her face. He cannot help the wry smile at her comment- having thought much the same of all the beds he's had since he joined ALASTAIR almost a year ago.
But the tale is not yet done- so with a sigh he continues:] When I faced Malekith again I was reckless and angry as I had not been since I was youth. I challenged him alone, foolishly, and I was lucky that I only lost my arm before-- [she arrived. Thor.] help came.
[And there. It is done. A sigh escapes him, long and deep.] When I return I hope the chance come for me to pay him back in kind.
[Beds themselves are still new to her in general, but at least Hathaway had been considerate enough to provide her one large enough. If they were there, she thinks... she could both hold him and also be at ease in her shape. Perhaps... on the ship.
She looks at him properly until the sigh, when she finally lays her head on his chest and spends a moment just listening further. To the movement of air in lungs and the pump of blood.
Emotions were a double-edged sword. She knew it well. Knew too well, what pride or recklessness could do to a warrior, so that... it isn't hard to imagine. Nor is it hard to make the leap to what it might be like, to carry the proof of that mistake always. Most of her own were hidden by the dun coat of her hide- at least, when she wasn't in the human shape lacking such advantages.
The story comes to its end (for now).]
... then for your honor, I hope it so.
[Even though she dislikes thinking of the future- she can hope that for him.]
[It feels nice, and she cannot help but lean into it, eyes closing a moment. For reasons she has never been able to accurately pin down, Hayame has always loved Odinson's hands. Large, capable of both strength and gentle acts both. (Like his had been.)]
You do not need thank me for such a thing. It is-
[There's a pause, perhaps somewhat awkward, before she forces herself to speak over the blushing desire to rely on silence and the implied, to say the word aloud (even if it was yet something only possible because it was the two of them alone).]
Odinson's been using the term himself, talking to his brother and a few others he's close to about their relationship. It's the first she's said so, however-]
Ah-- are we lovers, then? [Hopefully she knows him well enough by now to understand that the gentle humour in his voice is fond rather than mocking.]
[Hayame is... very well aware that it is the first time she has said such a thing. She has managed to discuss him, (somewhat), with Otaka... but she has never used a word to describe their relationship. Nor asked him to define it, perhaps... a bit too scared of defining it.
She colors a bit more impressively to be teased even just slightly, struggling to come up with something equal in answer, but all she can manage is a somewhat sharp poke at his rather bare chest, eyes averting.]
I- I certainly do not have another word for what we are doing here.
[Namely, lying in bed together naked after a rather physically exhaustive round of intimacies. That and. The rest. All that.]
[He can't allow such an attack on his person to go unprovoked! Laughing and squirming a little, he reaches to try to take her hand to prevent any further assault.]
[She's not going to, she is definitely not going to, she is a mature and stoic woman who certainly does not...
Poke him again.
Because it had made him laugh, and she likes the sound. Wants to give him reason to smile, after he has shared something that had momentarily stolen that expression away.]
Agree? When you're set on bruising me so- [Still laughing, Odinson reaches for her hands, hoping to prevent any future assaults. He is prepared to wrestle if she fights back, though he's not particularly set on winning if she chooses not to go peacefully.]
[It is easier to forget her discomfort in human body when she is distracted so, by his laughter and the fact that she allows (allows, mind!) her hands to be captured by his, flushing in indignation. (Not just indignation.)]
With that tough skin of yours I do not think you've right to complain at all. I have not left a single mark upon you.
[And not for... well, she wasn't trying to, but. Though he'd been red as an ogre with lizard venom in the labyrinth, he was unburned. Though he'd been bruised by the Vakdir, he was again unblemished. (And really... it was a comfort. To not need worry for his safety as much, outside of apparently the equally powered forces of the likes of his world.)
Still... she finds herself slinking steadily more atop him than beside.]
If not my body, then it's my poor spirit that's brusied. [He may or may not be helping the shift from beside to above.]
What a lover I have, who does such things to me! [But his smile and laughter give him away, enjoying having the word between them now. Enjoying that she is the one who brought it up.]
For a moment, Hayame thinks she has made a grave error, using that word. Looking slightly down at him, seeing the smile as he says it... it causes a rather shameful surge of emotion somewhere in her chest that she is certain she cannot hide. To have such a weakness-]
And if... your lover [possessives] happened to damage this bed, would that bruise your spirit further?
[She realizes a bit belatedly that it's phrased... rather oddly, but- can't take it back now.]
[He still has her hands, which he takes full advantage to bring a hand up so he can press his mouth to it. His eyes are bright, reflecting the enjoyment he feels.]
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Metal? Does she find them easy to use? Norns, but I was lucky to have this thing. Half the time I forget it's even there. [There's genuine curiosity in his tone and expression, no hesitation at all.]
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Curiously, she finds where flesh and dwarf-make meet, thumb rubbing gently, distracting.]
She uses a "typewriter" with them fine, and with a mane comb she is... adroit enough. I suppose.
[This time when she blushes it is oddly enough from admitting that she had a near stranger brush her hair, rather than the way it's all too easy to stretch her neck out to the touch of his fingers, pressing cheek to pillow and closing her eyes briefly against the sight of the ring flashing softly in the light.]
There must be no dwarves in her military.
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The- ones I've known tend to prefer their own kind. They've their own realm, so they seldom visited Earth.
[He awake enough now to wonder at her bringing up the topic.] Are you considering getting your own arm to match, now you see how there are many of us with such fine accessories?
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That fear had been the only thing that made her break with her usual distaste for magic in her body and seek on of Hathaway's sorcerers.]
... perhaps for a moment I did.
[Even with her desire to be considerate, to respect his secrets as he had always respected hers... it seems so uncouth to not speak plainly. He would hardly need answer if he did not wish to, so-]
I simply... wondered. How it is you came to need such a thing.
[The idea of someone as strong as he, stronger than anyone in her own world, being injured so... it is hard to imagine.]
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He's quiet for so long that she might think he's gone back to sleep, if she doesn't see the thoughtful look on his face. How to explain it, he wonders. There's so much that had led to his encounter with Malekith--]
Have you heard of the race of elves? [His voice is deliberately distant. It was not so long ago that this had been a raw wound, physically and emotionally. He's not sure what emotions will stir as he speaks of it.
But she should know about this. And the telling of it will reveal other things he has been avoiding.]
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So she waits, and her thumb still slides gently along his arm in silent rhythm until he speaks again.]
... only with ALASTAIR. They have long ears and slim frames.
[At least, those were the only particular characteristics she had found terribly different from humans with the one she had met in passing. His world's... she settles into the sheets to find out.]
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In the nine realms there are two kinds of elves. The light elves- which are most like those who have been on our team- who dwell in the realm of Alfheimr, and the dark elves who live on Svartalfheimr. They were related, I think, long ago in the distant past before the light elves devoted themselves to the good, pure things of this world and the dark elves turned to mischief and evil and treachous things. [Usually Odinson laments that he hasn't his brother's skill at tale-telling. But for now he finds it fitting. There is no good way to tell this tale.]
Among these is one by the name of Malekith. He is the darkest and most twisted of all of them- and the most ambitious. When I first encountered him, many years ago, he was in the service of Surtur, the demon lord of the fire realm Muspelheimr, and he was content to do his bidding and wreak havoc on the peoples of Earth. I overcame him them, and he was locked away. For good, I thought.
He surfaced again a few years ago and set the nine realms into a war in which my allies and I barely won. He escaped our grasp then- [Odinson cannot help the grim tone of his voice. If they'd captured Malekith then, so many things would have been different.] and he made many alliances with other evil men and beings before I next met him.
[But Odinson was not the same when they next met, and he isn't sure where to begin that. Silence falls as he considers it, steeling himself for what must be told.]
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A part of her almost wins out in desire to move closer, to fit against his chest as if the heartbeat there would tell her more than his face might, but that was a coward's way- she has asked, and so she will watch as he tells it. Prove that she is worthy to hear it.
An enemy banished, yet returned, more powerful than ever, who was wily enough to avoid capture, to scheme-
Hayame does not know the right words, she feels she almost never does. But she tries.]
... was it he?
[Who took it, next they met.]
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But before that is told, there is something else I must share. Something which happened between that war of the realms and when I next faced Malekith the Accursed.
[And now that it comes to it, he does not want to speak.] You recall the hammer I found on the mothership, Mjolnir? I told you of Thor and his adventures with her, then. [A pause, and with a heaviness-] Of my adventures with her. [The pain fills him, anger and loss almost as fresh as they'd been, what? Only a year ago it felt like. The blink of an eye.
All of a sudden he feels crowded. He wants to pace, he wants to fight, he wants to do anything but lie here and relive his memories.
He draws his hand away from her, clenches it uselessly on empty air at his side.]
It was between those two encounters with Malekith that I lost her. That I gave up the name Thor.
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But she has only known Odinson. It is yet strange, to consider him by that name though she knows he must have lived centuries by it. The way he had spoken of it made it seem as if the hammer itself had chosen to be lost... and she tries to believe it, because he has never lied to her. His hand draws away, and she doesn't pursue it. Shame and anger are feelings she knows... very well. Perhaps better than any other. Some of the few emotions she can spot easily on a face, or in a heart.
What she did not quite expect was the empathetic pang in her own, to see it on his face. Though she does not think he will take it, (she herself might not, she knows), she just makes sure to leave one hand free, palm up, in silent offer on the mattress between them.
It is easier now to imagine then how the story ends- that without the hammer made by those dwarves that he had not been as strong, perhaps, not at his full potential, and so a dark creature had taken advantage of such plight. But in between...
Hayame does not put the wonder into words, though. Not this time. It is for him to decide if he wants to tell more now- it is clearly something deep, something painful- and though she invites the telling, looking clearly into his eyes unflinching... she does not demand it.]
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He has only told this much to Loki, who understood some of what it meant to him. There's less to explain to one with a similar nature. Explaining it to Hayame- there's more he'll have to share, fewer shortcuts.]
Forgive me. I cannot tell that part yet. [He looks away, seeing her hand open and waiting for him.
Oh, by the Norns. He does not deserve this. He takes her hand all the same, brings their fingers together.
He hopes she will understand.] Suffice to say-- in losing Mjolnir I lost myself, and my reason. I was angry and reckless. There was nothing I wouldn't have done to get her back.
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I offer you no forgiveness. There is nothing to forgive.
[Had he not given her the same courtesy and those same words? She has told no one everything. Told him more perhaps than others, but there was yet shames she kept to herself. The shame of admitting aloud rather than implying that she had once served humans at the expense of her own kind. Of admitting the extent of her failures, and how she had brought the threat of ruin on the heads of those who had taught her of the possibility of freedom. Why it was so desperately important to her to have Hathaway fulfill their promise to her.
There are things it is hard for a person to say. Even if that person were a god.
She thinks to say something else. That she was perfectly content with Odinson, even if he had once been Thor. That the self he is now, for all that... still seems enough to her. But it all sounds either ignorant or too simple in her mind, and so she hopes it will simply be understood with the kiss she brushes against his knuckles, as she slinks back closer, muttering a sullen "now if only this bed was larger" under her breath as she tries to find a comfortable way to tangle up with him that made it easier to forget she had two legs.]
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But the tale is not yet done- so with a sigh he continues:] When I faced Malekith again I was reckless and angry as I had not been since I was youth. I challenged him alone, foolishly, and I was lucky that I only lost my arm before-- [she arrived. Thor.] help came.
[And there. It is done. A sigh escapes him, long and deep.] When I return I hope the chance come for me to pay him back in kind.
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She looks at him properly until the sigh, when she finally lays her head on his chest and spends a moment just listening further. To the movement of air in lungs and the pump of blood.
Emotions were a double-edged sword. She knew it well. Knew too well, what pride or recklessness could do to a warrior, so that... it isn't hard to imagine. Nor is it hard to make the leap to what it might be like, to carry the proof of that mistake always. Most of her own were hidden by the dun coat of her hide- at least, when she wasn't in the human shape lacking such advantages.
The story comes to its end (for now).]
... then for your honor, I hope it so.
[Even though she dislikes thinking of the future- she can hope that for him.]
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It's for all the innocents who suffered and would still suffer at the hands of Malekith that he would fight.
As the silence draws out between them he smooths a gentle hand through her hair.]
I thank you. For listening.
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You do not need thank me for such a thing. It is-
[There's a pause, perhaps somewhat awkward, before she forces herself to speak over the blushing desire to rely on silence and the implied, to say the word aloud (even if it was yet something only possible because it was the two of them alone).]
It is normal to... expect from one's... lover.
[Right???]
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Odinson's been using the term himself, talking to his brother and a few others he's close to about their relationship. It's the first she's said so, however-]
Ah-- are we lovers, then? [Hopefully she knows him well enough by now to understand that the gentle humour in his voice is fond rather than mocking.]
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She colors a bit more impressively to be teased even just slightly, struggling to come up with something equal in answer, but all she can manage is a somewhat sharp poke at his rather bare chest, eyes averting.]
I- I certainly do not have another word for what we are doing here.
[Namely, lying in bed together naked after a rather physically exhaustive round of intimacies. That and. The rest. All that.]
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Certainly, it's a good word.
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[She's not going to, she is definitely not going to, she is a mature and stoic woman who certainly does not...
Poke him again.
Because it had made him laugh, and she likes the sound. Wants to give him reason to smile, after he has shared something that had momentarily stolen that expression away.]
Then I shall use it, if you agree with it-
[(Which is redder, a cherry or Hayame's face?)]
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With that tough skin of yours I do not think you've right to complain at all. I have not left a single mark upon you.
[And not for... well, she wasn't trying to, but. Though he'd been red as an ogre with lizard venom in the labyrinth, he was unburned. Though he'd been bruised by the Vakdir, he was again unblemished. (And really... it was a comfort. To not need worry for his safety as much, outside of apparently the equally powered forces of the likes of his world.)
Still... she finds herself slinking steadily more atop him than beside.]
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What a lover I have, who does such things to me! [But his smile and laughter give him away, enjoying having the word between them now. Enjoying that she is the one who brought it up.]
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For a moment, Hayame thinks she has made a grave error, using that word. Looking slightly down at him, seeing the smile as he says it... it causes a rather shameful surge of emotion somewhere in her chest that she is certain she cannot hide. To have such a weakness-]
And if... your lover [possessives] happened to damage this bed, would that bruise your spirit further?
[She realizes a bit belatedly that it's phrased... rather oddly, but- can't take it back now.]
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Nay, the contrary. I'm fond of breaking beds.
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