[What else is there to say? Hayame has nothing else, and in the absence of any question from him, any demand that she speak... silence is easier. Silence has always been easier. Liem knows how to cry without sound, but she has scent and she has a shirt dampening just enough to know... and to remember that she had taught Yubari how to cry like that. She had learned early not to cry at all, but Yubari had never been as cold or as hard as she was. As she had to be, as a woman seeking desperately to be a warrior in a world ruled by men. But even for a boy, to be overheard crying would label him weak. She had at least taught him to cry quietly, until he became a man and learned like her not to cry at all.
But this- Now it is her burning with salt and water, stinging in her eye and in the hole where one used to be. Unlike when she had been a filly and her brother had crept into her stall... She doesn't rebuke him, or demand that he stop crying and be strong. Instead... instead, she finds an awkward, stilted rhythm to shift her weight between one foreleg and the other, pulling him along with her as she rocks ever so slightly.
Back and forth, back and forth, until she can speak without betraying herself when she says,]
Your shard...
[She swallows, inhaling his scent, trying to remember-]
no subject
But this- Now it is her burning with salt and water, stinging in her eye and in the hole where one used to be. Unlike when she had been a filly and her brother had crept into her stall... She doesn't rebuke him, or demand that he stop crying and be strong. Instead... instead, she finds an awkward, stilted rhythm to shift her weight between one foreleg and the other, pulling him along with her as she rocks ever so slightly.
Back and forth, back and forth, until she can speak without betraying herself when she says,]
Your shard...
[She swallows, inhaling his scent, trying to remember-]
I want to see it.