What is love? (Vel’s contemplation)
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Love wasn’t quite a stranger to Velancea, but it was no good friend, either. Sure, she knew the idea of it. She loved her brother, and no matter his feelings towards her, she always would.
She loved Trahearne and Dragon’s Watch - they were her family; a bond she could never replace or recreate.
But to love someone in the sense of giving yourself up to another was absolutely foreign to her. She’d heard stories of it and seen it in action, but the feeling was something she’d never experienced before.
How does one know when they’re in love? How do they know that that’s what the feeling is?
Perhaps it’s in the way they laugh - be it full-bodies and loud, or a soft chuckle under their breath. Or in their sarcastic, annoying comments that could be better timed in certain circumstances.
Could it be in the way his low voice seems to cut through her every distracting thought and bring her back to reality; the way he knows when and how to take command in serious situations, and show her how to take a deep breath and relax in less taxing ones?
Maybe it’s in the way her stomach gets that weird, fluttery feeling when his violet eyes bore into her with so much emotion and attention that she can’t look away or form a coherent thought.
The way his hands feel on her shoulders when he works out the tension in her muscles; his lips lingering a little too closely to her ear when he speaks quietly with her…
Perhaps one knows they’re in love when they can’t keep their mind off the other person and focus on the task at hand; when all they want is to feel their touch and hear their voice in person, rather than over a buggy communicator; when they just want more even if they don’t know what more is because they’ve never known feelings like these.
These… gooey, fluttery, fucked up feelings that make her want to grab a bottle of whiskey for the night.
She hated them.
And she never wanted to stop feeling them.
