She does not startle at the touch as it is felt. Like the a wounded animal, still in possession of its faculties in spite of its pain, she can feel and scent her oldest friend with a familiarity that knows no bounds. It is just something absolute, like perhaps a memory that is continuously brought to life.
(She had been bruised and battered and hurt in her childhood. Her seclusion was far more distinct than Valturze’s had been when they were young, and she had dealt with the pains of it more greatly but more silently. In equal measure they had both suffered, but the Prince had suffered in an isolated silence she has never learned to shun. And it is now the isolation grows. and yet even with the vampire’s presence so constant, the Creature keeps to herself.)
It brushes skin as she shivers just so, but does not shake or openly tremble in spite of how loud and apparent and sudden the feeling is.
She murmurs this like it is not obvious and she isn’t clearly aware that she is so very, very nude. But she couldn’t do much else besides discard stained silk and fall away as sleep had called to her. Fingers twitch in the grasp of a touch, eyes open, half-lidded-- weary but curiously regarding. Her cheeks have flushed a shade of very evident red, but the covers themselves are so far away to grasp, and they would wander her so far from Val’s languid, tender touch.
“You need not-- thank me.”
Gentle husk of her tone, head dipped, all that dark hair over those silver-blue eyes.