[She must have misheard him. There is a long moment where she just stares at him, unmoving, unbreathing, unblinking, as if she's forgotten how to do any of those things. Is it a cruel joke she has become the punchline of? Was she hallucinating? Was he- ? Of all the things she could have thought was going to happen now, here, in the dirt and roots of the dead Great Tree, she never-
Never-]
You're confused-
[The words come out suddenly, before she can even really understand them herself. Her knees shake, threatening to unlock so that she might flee from the confusing and unexpected confession that she should denounce as insulting, as mockery at best. To be desired she could almost manage to imagine, because even the humans who denounced her kind as beasts to be subjugated would still fuck them, but love? She loved-
A man who wasn't here. A man who would never know what she felt, because she was a coward, a man who would die with her the morning after she managed to return to her world.]
You think the world is going to end-
[That had to be it. It was the only thing that made sense. He just didn't want to be alone, and she was... She was there.
no subject
Never-]
You're confused-
[The words come out suddenly, before she can even really understand them herself. Her knees shake, threatening to unlock so that she might flee from the confusing and unexpected confession that she should denounce as insulting, as mockery at best. To be desired she could almost manage to imagine, because even the humans who denounced her kind as beasts to be subjugated would still fuck them, but love? She loved-
A man who wasn't here. A man who would never know what she felt, because she was a coward, a man who would die with her the morning after she managed to return to her world.]
You think the world is going to end-
[That had to be it. It was the only thing that made sense. He just didn't want to be alone, and she was... She was there.
She was still here.]