In quiet like this, she can pretend that she is a survivor through to the core, to the very end, and not a woman who has sworn to give up her life for the sake of cleansing her honor and saving the orphans she had wronged before a single day passes in her own world. If she can ever return to it. But even knowing that... she had fought to survive the breeding stables. She had fought to survive until her sale. She had fought (just not hard enough) to believe in a future where she might be free. She now fought to survive here, for victory, for-
For her to put aside the pride and the defenses she had honed living in a world where her body was not her own. She did not so easily allow anyone to touch her because every Exhibition Day everyone touched her- or at least, everyone who was interested in potentially buying her. Even her seasonal heats she viciously suppressed and instead tortured herself with painful, useless abstinence... until her failed attempts at regaining her agency at the World's Edge. But...
... She preferred it when they were even.
With a rustle of dry vines that now ran through her long hair, Hayame bends down just slightly, narrowing the foot and a few inches that she has on him. Instead of snatching her shard from his hand and reclaiming it... this way, she can draw the layers of her kimono-like top enough apart that it bares the place on her sternum just below her breasts where her shard is meant to rest.
As if it were some sort of pact, or perhaps just proof of their understanding in this moment... She waits, her halved gaze softer than she should allow it to be.]
no subject
In quiet like this, she can pretend that she is a survivor through to the core, to the very end, and not a woman who has sworn to give up her life for the sake of cleansing her honor and saving the orphans she had wronged before a single day passes in her own world. If she can ever return to it. But even knowing that... she had fought to survive the breeding stables. She had fought to survive until her sale. She had fought (just not hard enough) to believe in a future where she might be free. She now fought to survive here, for victory, for-
For her to put aside the pride and the defenses she had honed living in a world where her body was not her own. She did not so easily allow anyone to touch her because every Exhibition Day everyone touched her- or at least, everyone who was interested in potentially buying her. Even her seasonal heats she viciously suppressed and instead tortured herself with painful, useless abstinence... until her failed attempts at regaining her agency at the World's Edge. But...
... She preferred it when they were even.
With a rustle of dry vines that now ran through her long hair, Hayame bends down just slightly, narrowing the foot and a few inches that she has on him. Instead of snatching her shard from his hand and reclaiming it... this way, she can draw the layers of her kimono-like top enough apart that it bares the place on her sternum just below her breasts where her shard is meant to rest.
As if it were some sort of pact, or perhaps just proof of their understanding in this moment... She waits, her halved gaze softer than she should allow it to be.]