[It is strange for Hayame to look at a house and feel as if she would be able to enter it without difficulty. But this one... She knows was built with her in mind, even if she never fully committed in clear words to accepting it, always shying away from the definitive and letting assumption and implication speak for her. Unlike the residences of her own world which were meant only for humans, the only race deemed worthy to step inside... The door is large, the ceilings tall, the halls wide...
Her own expression is... conflicted, when she meets Liem's gaze. His fingers have curled back protectively around his shard, but... her fingers have not released his hand. If anything... the grip may be slightly tighter, confronted by this... this choice she has been avoiding.
But even in that avoidance... She had come here, even though she would not have been able to give a truthful reason why she needed to pass by this area of Alenroux in her day's patrol. She had not told herself she would meet him here, which meant that she had come to see... that. The house. The symbol of what might have been if Liem had not gone to Zenith, if he hadn't rendered this place a symbol of betrayal and unfinished business-
He is back, though. It is not accepting a tainted gift from a traitor, now, it's... something a friend had done. Done partially for her. So even though the words are still not easy to say, heavy and awkward on her tongue... Hayame tips her head to the side slightly and averts her gaze awkwardly, summoning up the courage to say something as supposedly simple as,]
...
[Just say it. All she has to do is say it, but it is... harder than she thought. Never in any moment in her world had she ever thought to live anywhere but a stable, because that... that is where jinba were kept. She had always known she would never step onto a proper floor, never have a door to close and lock for privacy, never have a bed like humans had, never own something. But now, after all Liem had done...]
no subject
Her own expression is... conflicted, when she meets Liem's gaze. His fingers have curled back protectively around his shard, but... her fingers have not released his hand. If anything... the grip may be slightly tighter, confronted by this... this choice she has been avoiding.
But even in that avoidance... She had come here, even though she would not have been able to give a truthful reason why she needed to pass by this area of Alenroux in her day's patrol. She had not told herself she would meet him here, which meant that she had come to see... that. The house. The symbol of what might have been if Liem had not gone to Zenith, if he hadn't rendered this place a symbol of betrayal and unfinished business-
He is back, though. It is not accepting a tainted gift from a traitor, now, it's... something a friend had done. Done partially for her. So even though the words are still not easy to say, heavy and awkward on her tongue... Hayame tips her head to the side slightly and averts her gaze awkwardly, summoning up the courage to say something as supposedly simple as,]
...
[Just say it. All she has to do is say it, but it is... harder than she thought. Never in any moment in her world had she ever thought to live anywhere but a stable, because that... that is where jinba were kept. She had always known she would never step onto a proper floor, never have a door to close and lock for privacy, never have a bed like humans had, never own something. But now, after all Liem had done...]
... I will accept it.
[... "Thank you".]