unprompted ask // always accepting !!
Koriand’r hovers just above the fractured earth, boots lowering softly into dust still warm from combat. The scent of iron and sweat lingers heavy in the air, and she studies him — really studies him — the way he rolls his shoulders as if they are not screaming, the way his hands flex despite the swelling beginning to bloom across raw knuckles. Emerald gaze sharpens, then gentles. She steps closer, carefully, reverently — as if approaching a wounded lion. ❝ The pits have claimed enough of you today, ❞ she says, voice warm but firm, already reaching for one of his hands despite the inevitable protest she expects. Her thumb brushes over bruised skin, light careful, glow faint but controlled. ❝ Come. Let me tend to your wounds. & No grumbling. ❞ There is no room for argument in her smile — only care wrapped in pink. ( @st4rb0ltz )
he was frustrated, his shoulders rolling whilst he pretended that they did not protest, whilst he pretended every muscle was not one long line of ache. he moved in an uncanny aftermath personified, caring not about the pain, caring not about the adrenaline that drained and the structure that remembered it was made of flesh and not myth. his calloused hands flexed at his sides, knuckles blooming with bruised colour, the skin split and utterly hideous where force met resistance and neither wanted to yield. he did not think he was worth studying [ ... ] yet she studied him anyway.
his very first instinct was to deny her statement, to shrug it off and mayhap make a sardonic comment about how he was still standing. that was the usual script he knew so well ⸻ to brush it off, to laugh it off, to ignore the way his bones growled with fatigue whilst the ground still remembered the shock of his impact. but her smile was soft, and the command was naught but care laced in her gentle form. his first response was silence, still. he looked at her hand in his ( so small against his own, but madly unshaken ) and then up at her lineaments. from there, it was all he could see: she was in the centre of that ruin, and he simply allowed her to take control whilst he stared intensely and helplessly. he knew he was not ready to lay his heart at her feet, so he allowed his spheres to speak instead.
