Together, we are so alone

An accented, feminine voice caught him off guard as it pulled him from his deep, contemplating thoughts. The greeting made his ears perk and his head turn away from the view as he looked down at the far smaller woman that had approached him, blinking a couple times with surprise. He hadn't noticed anyone else out here, but he also hadn't been paying much attention to his surroundings so that was no surprise. "Oh, yes... Hello, Aranea," he rumbled in return when she introduced herself, giving her a soft smile. He had seen her around the pack fairly often so her face wasn't unfamiliar even though they hadn't directly spoken yet. Even though he already knew that she was one of the healers, he could have guessed it right away from her kind expression and the way she approached him so carefully.

When she questioned how he was doing, his smile faltered for a heart beat before he was able to regain the expression. He did try his hardest to maintain an even keeled, calm demeanor on the surface when he was around others, but he wasn't entirely sure what he had looked like while he was staring off into space letting himself get lost in his thoughts. "I'll be okay," he replied after a moment, repeating the response that he had given when Resin had asked a similar question. He wasn't sure how long it would take for him to recover, but one day he would. Whether that day would come when Azariah returned or when his heart finally moved on was still to be determined.

He glanced away from her toward the ground for a moment while he tried to form some kind of coherent thought before finally just settling on, "Would you join me?" He motioned to the spot beside him before looking back up at the sunset, the sky just beginning to darken enough that the first glimpses of the moon and stars were beginning to be visible. There was a long moment of thoughtful silence, his brow creasing as he tried to find some way to summarize how he was feeling before finally deciding it was impossible. He had experienced grief so often that it had become an old friend in his life and the last thing he wanted to do was bring others in to his pain, but he'd be lying if he said it wasn't nice to have someone with him for a moment.

"It's not my first hardship and I'm sure it won't be the last," he assured her, shifting his silver gaze toward her again as a sad smile touched his lips.

Walk | "Talk" | think