[How foolish that line seems. So simple, so pointless. So what if he were a leader of men where he came from? What did it matter if she would have a place in his world, when she was what she was in her own? Who could change everything, who could make it so there weren't those lesser in the world?
Who could make it so that a lone jinba didn't feel isolated by the racial and societal differences between her and the other shardbearers? Who could make it so that an honor-bound one did not burn with bitterness and hatred over every insult and derision directed her way when she opened her mouth in public forum to speak her mind?
Surely no one.
But he turns back and holds out his shard to her, his very soul, and invites her to do what she will with it. To just smash it, if she wanted to. Hayame hates that she is laying down in this moment, too weak to sit up. Her stiffened, Blight-bitten fingers had managed to undo her shirt but had been stymied by the much tighter knots holding the binding of her breasts, and yet she does not yell at him or slap his face away, like she had at the masquerade.
She's staring at his shard. At the trust being laid out for her mercy right in front of her. The life being entrusted to her, without reservation, as if he thought she was worthy of it and was actually willing to show it in a way that couldn't be denied. After a long, long moment... slowly... slowly, not even just because she is sickened and grown frail... her hand leaves her clothing to curl stiffly around his shard. Despite the clumsiness of her stricken body, the numbness in her extremities... the touch is carefully light. It could be called delicate.
With her other, slightly still deft hand, she manages to finally undo the knot on her binding, tugging on a wrap job so vicious it seemed as if she were intent on smothering any part of her that was a woman. One tug, two, and there is a glimpse of stifled bosom swelling as she breathes in, her fingers delve between the cloth strips...
From just below and between her breasts she pulls a sharp, arrowhead-shaped shard from her body, one with a crack running through it, deep and painful. A shard which she deposits in her palm beside the golden crescent.]
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Who could make it so that a lone jinba didn't feel isolated by the racial and societal differences between her and the other shardbearers? Who could make it so that an honor-bound one did not burn with bitterness and hatred over every insult and derision directed her way when she opened her mouth in public forum to speak her mind?
Surely no one.
But he turns back and holds out his shard to her, his very soul, and invites her to do what she will with it. To just smash it, if she wanted to. Hayame hates that she is laying down in this moment, too weak to sit up. Her stiffened, Blight-bitten fingers had managed to undo her shirt but had been stymied by the much tighter knots holding the binding of her breasts, and yet she does not yell at him or slap his face away, like she had at the masquerade.
She's staring at his shard. At the trust being laid out for her mercy right in front of her. The life being entrusted to her, without reservation, as if he thought she was worthy of it and was actually willing to show it in a way that couldn't be denied. After a long, long moment... slowly... slowly, not even just because she is sickened and grown frail... her hand leaves her clothing to curl stiffly around his shard. Despite the clumsiness of her stricken body, the numbness in her extremities... the touch is carefully light. It could be called delicate.
With her other, slightly still deft hand, she manages to finally undo the knot on her binding, tugging on a wrap job so vicious it seemed as if she were intent on smothering any part of her that was a woman. One tug, two, and there is a glimpse of stifled bosom swelling as she breathes in, her fingers delve between the cloth strips...
From just below and between her breasts she pulls a sharp, arrowhead-shaped shard from her body, one with a crack running through it, deep and painful. A shard which she deposits in her palm beside the golden crescent.]