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065 » focus on you in the light
[the girl that the denizens of this world call minfilia is almost expressionless.
she's not incapable of expression. she looked at thancred with wide, shocked eyes when first he came to spirit her from her cell, and she smiled at him several times, very slightly, when he swore to protect her from the sin eaters that stood guard outside her room. she tripped and fell as they were running out of gatetown, and her face contorted then in pain, but she didn't say anything, and she didn't ask thancred to stop running, either. she tried to limp on despite the pain.
even now that they are out of the city (safe for the moment from the eulmorean army, which will probably take a few bells to mobilize and search for her), she hasn't spoken.
this girl is nothing like ascilia — even through memories now fifteen years old, thancred must know that. her lashes are too thick, her nose too snub, and her mouth is somewhat smaller. ascilia had a boyishness to her, an energy, but this "minfilia" has nothing. she seems listless. she sits on a barrel, hands folded demurely in her lap, unmoving.
if it weren't for this girl's blond hair, her eyes like crystal — the selfsame eyes that minfilia warde bore when first she hearkened to hydaelyn's call and embraced her role as the word of the mother — if it weren't for those, she wouldn't be like minfilia at all.
but she agreed to go with thancred, and she smiled at him. thus far, she has complied with his every order. she must want something more than that disturbingly ordinary, windowless room, the books on her shelf, the taste of meol.]
she's not incapable of expression. she looked at thancred with wide, shocked eyes when first he came to spirit her from her cell, and she smiled at him several times, very slightly, when he swore to protect her from the sin eaters that stood guard outside her room. she tripped and fell as they were running out of gatetown, and her face contorted then in pain, but she didn't say anything, and she didn't ask thancred to stop running, either. she tried to limp on despite the pain.
even now that they are out of the city (safe for the moment from the eulmorean army, which will probably take a few bells to mobilize and search for her), she hasn't spoken.
this girl is nothing like ascilia — even through memories now fifteen years old, thancred must know that. her lashes are too thick, her nose too snub, and her mouth is somewhat smaller. ascilia had a boyishness to her, an energy, but this "minfilia" has nothing. she seems listless. she sits on a barrel, hands folded demurely in her lap, unmoving.
if it weren't for this girl's blond hair, her eyes like crystal — the selfsame eyes that minfilia warde bore when first she hearkened to hydaelyn's call and embraced her role as the word of the mother — if it weren't for those, she wouldn't be like minfilia at all.
but she agreed to go with thancred, and she smiled at him. thus far, she has complied with his every order. she must want something more than that disturbingly ordinary, windowless room, the books on her shelf, the taste of meol.]
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Thancred, breathless and with one arm pressed against its matching ribs, leans heavily against an adjacent barrel, focused on counting his remaining cartridges as a means of blocking out the pain in his wounds. The pain of Not Minfilia, Either, which was never going to go away no matter what they told him in the Crystarium. After his vows of protection and several shouted taunts and curses at a particularly stalwart eater, Thancred has had about as much to say as the girl sitting to his left.
And that's different, too.
After some time - hidden from the Light as they are in this unused storeroom, beneath a windmill that barely suffers itself to turn even on the best of days - Thancred gathers what breath he can and the tatters of his thoughts and doesn't quite turn to look at her.]
Are you injured?
[Because he is. Sooner or later he'll need to do something about that, or they won't get far. Gods, they don't even have the cover of night to keep them, it's always damnably bright and for all they'll blend in with the bleached-dry seascape (sometimes it smells of Limsa Lominsa and he wants to drive his blade into the stone) they'll be useless against a pursuing army if they remain unfit to travel.]
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[she answers too quickly, as though she hasn't really thought about it, and this, in truth, is exactly what has happened. her standards for what constitutes an injury were imprinted upon her by ran'jit, and ran'jit would not allow her to consider herself injured unless she were well and truly unable to fight.
this is normal, and reasonable, of course. he has high standards. the other minfilias have had to be strong.
something instinctive, however, tells minfilia that this man — her savior? or a sin eater in a sinner's guise? — is not looking for such a stoic answer. she hesitates visibly, and then stutters, as though she has detected a reprimand that has yet to come.]
I... no. I hurt... my ankle, a little, but compared to your injuries, that's...
[she seems to have a kind of difficulty speaking — she chooses her words in a slow and somewhat haphazard manner, as though she's never truly had to voice her thoughts aloud, and she isn't quite sure how to do it.]
I'm all right. I'm worried about you.
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Not that he'll admit as much aloud; he has enough trouble letting himself accept it.
Instead of any reassurance, Thancred straightens, turns, crouches with a hard wince beside Minfilia's barrel seat. He can see her booted feet from here. They don't tell him very much of use, and while he is quite experienced in handling his own injuries in the field, the subtleties of a child's sprains lie rather beyond him.]
Don't take off your boot. [That, at least, should be sound enough advice.] It is the most support you'll have until we find some friendlier locale.
[Then he makes the grave mistake of glancing upward, automatic reassurance, and meeting her brilliant blue eyes.
Thancred releases his caught breath only after several seconds of talking himself into it.]
We'll go as far as it can bear your weight, all right?
[He is whispering, despite himself.]
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I understand.
[she is whispering too, but this is partly because it is what she is used to. it has never been particularly necessary for her to yell, or project, or indeed even be heard. she is the oracle. most things asked of her are merely her duty. she says yes. she must always say yes.
but there are other things that minfilia must consider. who are you? is chief among them, but there is they will not kill me; they will kill him, too. she knows nothing of who he is, or indeed even if he has her best interests at heart — but she thinks of ran'jit's steely gray eyes, of vauthry's madness, and she thinks she will take her chances with this stranger and his distant warmth.
she has yet to ask for his name.]
Where are we headed?
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[The answer was plain well before he asked. Furthermore, he knows he can't ask sanctuary of the Crystal Exarch for long, not when kidnapping the Oracle of Light (much as he loathes the words) would bring the might of Eulmore down upon any who dared shelter them. At some point. They'll have to catch him first.
'Twould be an outright lie to say he felt no thrill at all in this sort of...well, it is rather a heist, is it not? The most important one he can remember.
It is much, much easier to think in old familiar roguish terms. The rest is too heavy a weight to bear on cracked ribs and whatever is giving him a limp of his own. Thancred pushes aside all the other feelings in favor of rooting through his meager supplies and downing in three gulps the potion he finds therein. It will have to hold him for now. Y'shtola's voice sits in the recesses of his thoughts, warning him against the dangers of too much restorative in too little time.]
No matter. [To Minfilia? To the spectres in his thoughts? No matter. He turns his head toward her again, chin resting on his shoulder.] We'll manage together. Shall we go?
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still, she stands, her weight upon her good ankle. they cannot stay in this ramshackle hovel on the outskirts of kholusia forever, and this man has promised her an adventure, one her heart longs to have even if she lacks the words to voice that thought aloud.
she digs her nails into her palm. she can fight, theoretically. she doesn't know yet if she has the heart to fight eulmorean soldiers, who are just people, with hopes and dreams of their own — but lesser eaters, the sort that vauthry allowed ran'jit to battle with on occasion...]
I'll... stay close.
[she will follow thancred wheresoever he goes.]
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[As he passes, to have a look out the door in case of pursuit, he resists the sudden urge to just...for his hand to rest on her head a moment. No. Not until or unless anything becomes...certain.]
I can't make out anyone following us yet, so we'll need to make the most of what time we have. They will come after you.
[Judging by her prior looks over her shoulder, Thancred presumes she is well aware of what that means, and more prepared for the force of it than he himself is. They can only hope that the Eulmoran army will be entirely too distracted by the carnage shaking their foundations, and the dead sin eaters he has left behind.
The living and angry one, too, that ought to slow their efforts considerably.
Thancred reaches for Minfilia's wrist - or her hand, if she chooses - to guide her out of their poor excuse for a shack. There are some beasts in view, but no people; in another world this would be "night", after all, and it seems most people do take to their beds for the proper bells.]
Keep your hood raised as much as you can. [She has the benefit of a cloak; his white coat will have to serve him half as well, as always.] We'll get to the cliffside first, and move east from there.
[That's his grand plan so far: get to somewhere they can beg, barter, or stow away passage back to the Crystarium. As anonymously as possible.
And, should Minfilia offer no objections, and no scrub farmer of Wright or Light-touched beast of the Kholusian wilderness waylay them, soon enough they shall indeed come to the blessed shadow of the cliffs.]
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the shadows feel welcome on her sun-warmed skin.
they are safe, but they are not yet safe. if ran'jit has abandoned the comfort of his slow-moving army, the man who calls himself her father might not be far behind. they don't have time for conversation, or even for regrets. still — as she contemplates the sturdy grip of this man's hand in hers, when she looks up at his wide shoulders, she feels a pang of strange heartache that might not be her own, a lump in her throat that she has to swallow away. she thinks, suddenly and with inexplicable certainty, that if anything happens — if anything happens to him — she will regret not knowing who he was.]
...What should I call you?
[it is a strange way to ask — as if she is not entirely sure that she deserves his name.]
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Thancred stops. Come now. You knew, he tells himself. Yet his eyes close and his chest aches and his hand tightens but a moment around hers. His first try at saying his name is so choked with all he mustn't let free that there is no room left for sound.
So he tries again.]
Thancred. I am called Thancred.
[And he does not dare turn and look at her. What would be worse: recognition or emptiness? The closeness of a friend or the distance of a stranger?
He shall have neither. They must get to the Crystarium. All else does not matter, it cannot matter, until there is time. If ever there is time.
What should I call you? He may hear those careful words for the rest of his life and never find a remedy for their sting. They sound nothing alike, and look similar only in coloring and frowns of worry, and. Yet. Still.]
After we've gone a ways here we can stop to rest your ankle. [Her limp making itself known has not escaped his notice. If she is truly as young as she looks, then she has held up well indeed under the strain of the pace he set.] I should like to find us a hole in the cliffside first, if nothing better.
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...Thancred.
[perhaps it is not the right name to call him by. or perhaps she is simply not the right person to say it.
in any case, minfilia shakes her hooded head, peeking over her shoulder to see if any eulmorean guards are in pursuit. they remain in the clear, at least for now. she has been limping, and every step makes her torn ankle creak with pain, but it is still, she thinks, nothing. it will continue to be nothing until she dies or her leg gives out, whichever comes first.]
But we — we aren't safe here. I can keep walking...
[and yet she slips on a bit of uneven footing, and has to grit her teeth when the weight of her body is pushed onto her injured leg.]
Agh — I'll —
[be fine dies on her lips.]
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Thancred resolutely pushes aside the twinge in his ribs with the same conviction as the one just behind his heart.]
Be fine?
[If he sounds amused, he is. Indeed, something of a smile twitches around the corners of his mouth, and his eyebrows are raised in what might, in another lifetime, have been laughter.]
Many's the fool who has come to regret just such a lie, however well-intentioned. [One example is standing right here, holding her upright. Catching the flinch as she tests her bad ankle again. Noticing, in the full light, just how small and uncertain she seems - yet she is resolved to carry on despite the pain.
He is finding he forgot how acutely he missed such things.]
Minfilia. [That doesn't help.] I'm in no shape to carry you. We'll stop here, for the now. I know- [There was going to be a protest, he's sure of it.] I know. You're right, we're not safe here. We're not safe anywhere, I'm sorry to say, so we'll have to take our rest where we can get it.
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minfilia may be trained in combat of a theoretical kind, but she isn't strong. she stays caught in thancred's arms for a time, frail and featherweight as some sort of paper dancer, but after a long pause, she settles and finds her footing on the kholusian cliffs.
she could say yes. he is offering her reprieve. she could agree to it, as she always does with ran'jit — but i must, she thinks, i must make him understand.]
...If they catch us, they'll kill you. You... You know that, don't you?
[her voice wavers in an odd way as she continues:]
And still, you would — bother — with this?
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It's that he has failed at it. Every. Single. Time.
And the failures keep finding ways to come back with teeth.
Thancred nods, serious and solemn.]
I would. I will. Even if I thought it a bother, as you say, which, you should know, I do not. [Thancred sighs, only a little. If he can't outpace Eulmore, perhaps he deserves their catching him.
A swallow, and a fading rasp after:] I would not see you imprisoned so.
[So they will kill him. It will not be the worst that has happened to me. He turns his head to clear the choke of unhelpful emotions from his voice.]
I'm of the opinion the gods see fit to keep me alive to amuse them for some time yet. I might as well give them a good show, hm? [His smile doesn't reach his eyes, and it is fleeting as he steps back enough to let Minfilia lean on just one of his arms.] Now then. I believe I spy a fair enough overhang just along that bend. Enough to give us some respite from this damned Light. Shall we go?
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she looks deep into thancred's eyes now, or at least, she tries. it has not escaped her notice that he has yet to look directly at her. it may very well be that she has misjudged him, and he is only plotting to lure her away and kill her. but he could do that now, at this point, and it would only be a temporary setback. sooner or later, the next minfilia would be discovered.]
...If you are certain, then... I will speak of it no more.
[stoic, if only because she does not know what sort of face she ought to make in his presence, minfilia clutches thancred's much larger arm between her own as she follows him to the fair overhang beneath which they might rest awhile. once prompted, she sits obediently enough, choosing not to remove her hood. it is beginning to grow on her.
by most outward indications, she appears calm and compliant. internally, she is still full of questions.
one escapes her lips:]
...Do you hail from the Crystarium, Thancred?
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A sudden empty pang for a hearth and a table with two chairs threatens to rend his heart. Thancred stills, a “may I?” silent on his lips. Then he leans back into a crouch.]
It has been the place I call home for the last few years. I wasn’t born there, though. That place is long lost to me now.
[A lie woven with the truth.
He looks her in the eye for as long as he can, and he can hold his breath for a very long time indeed. When he lets it out, it comes with a shrug of just one shoulder.]
The Crystal Exarch has charge of the city. He’s a genial enough sort. [Two fingers tap her ankle once, gently, and then his hand stays just above it, not daring to crowd.] May I?
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[she doesn't sound entirely certain in her response, to be sure. there are other things that thancred has said that don't seem to add up — and could it be that he hails from a land now lost to the light? — but minfilia has no intention of prying where her curiosity is perhaps not welcome, and besides, he has made of her a request.
despite acquiescing to that request, minfilia isn't quite sure what thancred's intentions are. what does he plan to do, after all? surely he is no healer, and a sprain such as this is something they could examine when they have reached the crystarium...
the girl purses her lips very slightly, tipping her head very slightly to the side; it makes the drape of her hood fall over her forehead.]
...Should I take off my sandals?
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['Twould be folly to call the incline of his head a "nod" but it's confirmation enough. The potion he drank earlier was specifically made to ease pain without doing much actual restoration; he can feel the pull in his own too-strained muscles as he searches the hidden inner pockets of his coat for anything that might prove to be of use.
Unlike some of his colleagues, he does not carry enough dressings to mummify a man in his pouches. He does, however, know the life-saving value of a few - and the ever more versatile uses of simple cloth. Once Minfilia has removed her shoe, he shifts forward onto his knees again, not bothering to keep his grimace to himself.]
It's not going to be much. [His work is quick but not ungentle: lips pressed together a spell over the swelling no longer hidden by her shoes; folded squares of cloth on either side of her ankle; enough gauze wrapped around the whole arrangement to keep it all still while she walks. It's good neither of them are bleeding, or at least not anymore.] But it should be an improvement over only sandals. We've some distance to cover yet.
[And he won't see her falling behind; leaving her is out of the question. Task done, Thancred sits fully, sighing in mute relief over the absent ache.]
Not too tight, is it?
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his brief ministrations over her injured foot does not hurt overmuch. she reacts so minutely to slight changes in pressure and pain that she seems not to react at all, and when he is done, her ankle does feel more solidly supported. with this makeshift "splint," her muscles are far less likely to tear more and thereby cause further swelling.]
...It feels better.
[she says this with a sense of wonderment, as though she never expected it to work or make a whit of difference. she tests her weight on her ankle a little — not fully, just enough to reassess the pain — and then looks at him, wide-eyed and curious.]
How should I thank you, Thancred? When all of this is over?
[if we make it to the crystarium alive goes unsaid, at least for now. not because she isn't a pessimist, but merely because she thinks he would argue with her if she did say that, and they really needn't go in circles about it.]
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This is not that Minfilia. ...Or not entirely.
His lips smile.]
For a little field first aid? No thanks are necessary, I assure you.
[The pragmatic part of him knows it was what he had to do, and therefore what he should. The rest does not want even this girl to bear such a walk with pain in every second step.]
As for the rest...
[He has to stop. To breathe, harsh and fast, because his ribs twinge hard but also something he dares not name is trying its damnedest to squash all the air from his lungs in a grasp that burns like fire. It takes him some time to breathe properly again, to drive back the harsh wave of memory. Of what was lost.
There are no smiles when it passes. Thancred looks Minfilia in the eye and feels his shoulders set, both determined and burdened.]
We'll have to take it one day at a time. Thinking of "when it is over" is rather grand for a pair of fugitive souls.
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Is the Crystarium so far away? I suppose it must be...
[that's right, she thinks. if the crystarium were truly so close to eulmore, then vauthry could have sent his army of sin eaters to subjugate it long ago. which means it must be an infinitely greater distance away — and which means that she and thancred have much further to go.
this is not a question, then, of enduring the pain of her ankle for only a few hours until a healer can see her.
her expressionless face falls into an analytical coldness as she turns this new information over in her head — indeed, there would be something slightly off-putting about the lack of emotion in minfilia eyes, if not for the fact that she soon notices the odd shift in thancred's breathing. then they widen again, and she looks simply like the little girl she is.]
Are you all right?
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[Without grandeur, or added humorous deflection, or any real emotion at all.
Thancred makes himself breathe. She asked him a question.]
Far enough that you can't see the Tower from here, if you need some sort of physical measure. Moreover, this is an island.
[Does she know what an island is? What...does she know, he muses as he kicks "akin to Vylbrand" right out of his mind before it can worm its way through his teeth and bring a fresh wave of suffering upon his chest.]
Though the Light has altered the situation somewhat, we remain here surrounded by the sea. Walking straight to the Crystarium is rather out of the question, and I don't fancy a long swim.
[He hasn't enough potions to numb his physical pain even to make it to the amaro landing site near Stilltide. Not that he will be sharing this information with Minfilia.
...Though perhaps there is something he can share.
Holding his breath, he leans forward to close his hand around a stray branch - dead as all the other wood this close to the cliffs and long-exposed to the Light - and sits up enough to dig a rough outline of Kholusia into the dirt. After that, the coast of Norvrandt's mainland, the lake these people call the Source, the borders of Lakeland, and at the very eastern edge of those borders, a poor approximation of the Crystal Tower.]
We are here, or near enough to it. [He prods the mid-south section of Kholusia, above where Eulmore would jut into the sea.] The Crystarium and its shining tower, on the other hand...
[The butt of the stick taps the "tower" twice.]
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[minfilia leans forward, too, resting her hands in the mixed grass and soil beside her as she sits. she peers at thancred's crude map with unashamed curiosity, nodding in comprehension as he taps the squiggly point that — for the time being — is all that she knows of the crystal tower.]
I saw a map, once. It was in one of my history books. But then Ran'jit saw it, and took it away — though he gave me a different book not long after.
[the rough outlines in the dirt that thancred has just drawn match up fairly well with her fuzzy recollection of the map in that timeworn tome. that map, however, had nothing where the crystarium would have been, and a great deal of land beyond. suddenly, minfilia puts her hands in her lap, looking very slightly forlorn.]
I'm not sure how to put this... but I... I never thought that the space on the map was so... so big. That it would have all of this.
[she gestures, loosely, at their surroundings — the still, unmoving tides, the dead wood, the primordial light fading in and out overhead, mocking the true light of the sun.
to her, this barren landscape is full of wonder.]
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Norvrandt, when compared to the world he knows best, is absurdly small. Smaller even than Eorzea, he thinks, if the local cartographers have half the right of it and manage to agree on certain specific borders. The rest of it is Flood. Nothing. Empty.
Everything. The brutal finality of a Light he may not be sure whether to serve.
Minfilia's voice brings him back to himself; these are more words than he expected out of her, and a startling amount to proffer to her potential captor. Thancred may prefer the term rescuer but he's aware all criminals do.]
'Tis a sobering realization for us all, the first time. [He does recall learning firsthand the distance between things, especially on land, once Limsa was behind him.] I would wager what you saw was a map of this world before the Flood, then, or a poorly made one of after. Like as not, the great powers of Eulmore preferred you not develop wanderlust.
[At least he only rolled his eyes once.
The stick moves again; his rough sketch grows to include Il Mheg, whose landscape he has at least studied, and the Rak'tika Greatwood, for which maps would be a challenge at best.]
I'm a poor hand at it here, but to cover this distance, on foot [he makes a dotted line with the stick, across a portion of Lakeland] would span the best part of a day.
[He doesn't tell her this for the fascination of it, nor is he interested in making her feel somehow inadequate to the world. Perhaps it is because he senses a kindred curious spirit.
Or he's forgotten himself.]
Tell me about this Ran'jit.
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or her saving grace.
at the mention of ran'jit, minfilia pauses, visibly so. it is not that panic settles on her features. rather, her glimmering curiosity — her faintly gleaming shard of hope — dissipates in an instant, and suddenly her face is blank again, still and serene as a doll.]
Ran'jit? He... He is the leader of the Eulmorean forces. Their general.
[her answer is stiff as her ankle, packed in its makeshift splint, and equally wounded. after a moment, however, she soon catches on to the fact that thancred may be seeking a different answer.]
...He calls himself my father. But I know he isn't — not by birth, at least. It is true that he raised me, but...
[but the yelling. always the yelling. always that she is a foolish girl, with foolish wants, and that she does not see the privileges bestowed her, or how fortunate they are to live in lord vauthry's grace. always that she does not understand. never how she is supposed to understand.]
...I am... exceedingly poor at being the daughter he wishes me to be. I think... I believe he would be happier with a different Minfilia.
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All the light - no, all the want goes out of her. Thancred recognizes a conditioned response, perhaps better than most, and he catches himself openly surprised and wondering at it.
Her first point, Thancred knew already. He has done his own research on Ran'jit and the army, after all, the better to break in effectively and emerge with all his limbs attached. But when Minfilia goes on, further than factual information could ever take him - when she says Ran'jit would much prefer another Minfilia. Thancred's air catches in his throat. For a mercy he doesn't burst into a fit of coughs.
But you cannot tell yourself such a lie. You are here for a different Minfilia.
...Isn't he?
He can't tell, he can't tell if this child is truly his Minfilia in the ways that matter. She doesn't remember him, she doesn't know him, and he was told to expect it and told himself to learn to accept it and yet, seeing her, the light falling across bright hair and the singularly luminous blue of the eyes that might once have belonged to the Word of the Mother, his Minfilia-
One by one, he forces his fingers to relax out of the fists they have formed. No decisions until he has more answers. That much he promised them both ere he left the Crystarium.
You would be happier with a different Minfilia.
It tears his very heart in two. Over and over. As always.
The child before him, also Minfilia, does not believe she is enough for the man who has named himself her father. Thancred needs no extraordinary effort to feel that, for and with her, as he himself once did and perhaps always will.
For just a moment (he should stop himself, not let this happen, this is a decision no matter how much he wishes otherwise, but Thancred Waters will never while he draws breath stand idly and let Minfilia suffer alone if aught can be done) he lifts his hand, the one nearest Minfilia, and rests it gently on the top of her head. The moment passes quite quickly, he takes his hand away again, flexing his fingers.
For this, he has no words of comfort. Thancred breathes out. One day at a time. As Minfilia would have done.]
We may have overstayed our welcome beneath these cliffs. [No eaters or soldiers are about, but that doesn't mean it will always be so. Thancred unhooks a canteen from the belt beneath his coat, holding it out to her.] Have some water before we go.
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[many things seem to happen very quickly all at once, and the word slips past her lips before she even has time to stumble over it — the sir. she feels herself grow flustered for even saying it. thancred is not ran'jit any more than ran'jit is her father, so why did she act, for a moment, as if they were? they are not the same, she thinks to herself, a little irrationally. i must believe that they are not the same —
despite this misstep, minfilia takes the canteen obediently enough. she rises to her feet, trying not to think about the strange, brief weight of thancred's palm against her head. how nice it felt. how wondrously warm. ran'jit stopped showing such affection to his daughters long ago.
quietly, she will follow thancred as best she can and wheresoever he goes, though she does not make to drink from the canteen — having taken thancred's remark as a suggestion and not as an order.]
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When he looks back, just over his shoulder, he has put all of himself into softening whatever currently rests in his eyes.]
That won't be necessary, Minfilia. [In the face of "yes, sir" all he can do is try exceptionally hard not to make it sound like an order. (It would stick in his mind, if he knew, how similar their thoughts are in this moment. How they share a terrible stake in "I must believe they are not the same.") He sees the canteen still unopened between her hands, sighs, and turns around completely.]
I've not used it since last it was refilled, if that's the problem.
[Gods. Look at her. Though so much of her is hidden beneath her cloak, still, he is struck again by how much Minfilia is not. The space she does not occupy. How, if he were to turn just this far to the side and cant his head just so, she might well vanish in plain sight.]
Or is it reason you prefer? I could spend a while nattering on about the perils of dehydration in an unfamiliar and near-dying wilderness.
[There it is again, at the corners of his mouth, that thing that wants to be a smile but hasn't worked out how.]
It would probably bore you to tears. And we can't have that.