[He needn't. Needn't treat her so well, needn't consider her as highly as he seemed to, needn't consider her worth much of anything at all. The "0" is still glowing shamefully on her forehead, the mindless Minotaur not intelligent to count as a kill, and her hands that he so generously holds have failed to do so much.
She can only shake her head slightly to clear away his question. He simply needn't.
But it's quiet here, and though she had never been embraced in her entire life, this sort of touch she has experienced. If she tried, she could remember Yuugiri's chuckle and how that foolish expression he would make looked, lips twisted into a wry smile as if their situation was not serious. The way he would press a poultice against a cut she found difficult to reach, and say Sister, we all already know you'll become a lord's warrior, you needn't show off so much at Exhibition Day.
Gaze softening in weak nostalgia, she lowers her eyes and obediently submits to his treatment, two sets of lungs still expanding somewhat shallow, but steadying as he wipes the blood and dirt from her cheek and says such eloquent words, such articulate expression of his feelings. She knows she should respond in kind, but for her such a thing seems nearly impossible- though she tries.]
I always aspired to be the warrior of a great lord... that is all I worked for, but then things became so wrong-
[In her world, as well as this one. Expressing herself, as he surely knew by now, with how little she spoke and how little she gave of her past and personal feelings, but she tries, she does, struggling through the instinct to choke it down. A lord did not desire a jinba that was anything less than obedient.]
It is I who is grateful- if my brother were here, I would beg you take him in my stead, for he has not failed as I have... but he is not, and I-
[Have only Ninurrta, and hands shaking from what she hopes is perceived as exhaustion.]
I am the only one-
[No Kohibari, the armless who had defied their master and caused all of this simply because he wished to be free. No Koume, her round face aglow and a child growing in her belly. No Matsukaze, who was so strong and yet so gentle, who she thought perhaps, if things had been different, she could have-]
no subject
She can only shake her head slightly to clear away his question. He simply needn't.
But it's quiet here, and though she had never been embraced in her entire life, this sort of touch she has experienced. If she tried, she could remember Yuugiri's chuckle and how that foolish expression he would make looked, lips twisted into a wry smile as if their situation was not serious. The way he would press a poultice against a cut she found difficult to reach, and say Sister, we all already know you'll become a lord's warrior, you needn't show off so much at Exhibition Day.
Gaze softening in weak nostalgia, she lowers her eyes and obediently submits to his treatment, two sets of lungs still expanding somewhat shallow, but steadying as he wipes the blood and dirt from her cheek and says such eloquent words, such articulate expression of his feelings. She knows she should respond in kind, but for her such a thing seems nearly impossible- though she tries.]
I always aspired to be the warrior of a great lord... that is all I worked for, but then things became so wrong-
[In her world, as well as this one. Expressing herself, as he surely knew by now, with how little she spoke and how little she gave of her past and personal feelings, but she tries, she does, struggling through the instinct to choke it down. A lord did not desire a jinba that was anything less than obedient.]
It is I who is grateful- if my brother were here, I would beg you take him in my stead, for he has not failed as I have... but he is not, and I-
[Have only Ninurrta, and hands shaking from what she hopes is perceived as exhaustion.]
I am the only one-
[No Kohibari, the armless who had defied their master and caused all of this simply because he wished to be free. No Koume, her round face aglow and a child growing in her belly. No Matsukaze, who was so strong and yet so gentle, who she thought perhaps, if things had been different, she could have-]