Silent Salt's countenance is... a unique one. Not hideous, not quite, but not conventionally attractive by any means. Coupled with a cluster of scars and other ancient forms of injury further marring his face, he was never an easy one on the eyes, so to speak. He always wore the helm because it was his deeds that mattered, not his identity - or that was how he once thought, in his distant, heroic past. But, in painful, unfortunate truth, it was also partially because he simply didn't want to deal with the staring. With the shock. With the thinly veiled disgust. The forced politeness angered him the most; he knew they were lying, he knew his face perturbed them. He would've respected them so much more if they had just spoken plain.
There had always existed this shallow element of self-loathing within him; never more so than it does with regards to White Lily. She's so lovely, so captivating, and he's... he has to wear a mask all the time, just for some semblance of peace of mind. Hers is a sweet, delicate, almost ethereal beauty. He is grim and gruff and all dark, sharp edges, inside and out. If by some miracle his personality and status as Beast of Silence doesn't drive her away, then his face will. Like it had so many others.
He has never allowed anyone to remove his helm. Not even his friends and colleagues, both then and now (especially not now. Shadow Milk's petty jabs are insufferable even with Salt's face obscured; revealing it again would only escalate the jester's mockery). Even just trying to touch it sparks a terrible rage. It's his security blanket, in a way. Something that grants him a modicum of control over his supposed destiny. He cannot change how he looks, but he can at least hide it. And hide it, he will. From everyone he can, for as long as he can. From her most of all.
Perhaps he could've been more... polite in his refusal of her touch, the first few times. He saw a hand wrapped in green floating towards his face and he responded. The regret that washed over him at the sound of her yelp - startled and pained, an accessory to the tremor in her wrist born from him grasping it so tight - was overwhelming, almost suffocating, and yet... he did it again, the next attempt she made. And the one after that. And the one after that. Nevertheless, for reasons unknown, she persisted.
Must've been that morbid curiosity of hers.
The one time she asked him why he never rid himself of the helm, he answered her simply. "Because I don't want to." Five words - six, technically - conveyed to her through the curling of his fingers and the rattle of his gauntlets as he signed them to her. And she took it well, all things considered. No disappointment, no rebuttals, no further inquiries. Only a slow, thoughtful nod and nothing else. It was a mercy and a relief he didn't think he'd feel so thankful for, until he did.
Something told Silent Salt that she already knew the answer that hid behind the first one. Intuition? Their Soul Jam connection? That glint in her eye that resembled sympathy more than he would've liked? Whatever it is, it hardly matters in the end. She asked once. He answered once. She didn't ask again. That was the end of it.
With time, she grew more bold. No more reaching for his helm; it took a few tries but she learned her lesson there. Instead she let her hands rest on his cold shoulders. Trail along the dents and grooves in his chest. Take one of his gauntlets prisoner, turning it into a test subject, the apple of her curious eye as she studied the metal plates big and small encasing his fingers.
"Your hands are quite large," she remarked one day, some of it to him and some of it just to herself, her eyes still fused to the black sheet of his palm as she spoke. "My friend, Golden Cheese... She once told me that your comrade has large hands, too. Twice the size of hers, in fact. Are they bigger than yours, too?"
Yes, he told her, if his memory served. Once upon a time, Shadow Milk had tried to draft blueprints for armor that would actually suit Burning Spice's brutish proportions, and used Silent Salt's own as both a model and a controlled variable in his design experiments. Spice was as much a foolhardy thrillseeker then as he is now, charging into battle with his beads and bracelets and little else on his person. Whenever the five of them reconvened - and those meetings became fewer and fewer with time - Shadow Milk would nag him incessantly about it. Clucked at him like a mother hen would at an unruly chick. It was once his way of showing concern. Once.
The gauntlets were dirty and must have felt quite cold and unpleasant to the touch. But if White Lily minded, she made no sign of such. In fact, she showed the opposite; if he dared to believe what those slender, linen-wrapped fingers weaving through his own ironclad, mannish ones told him, she even seemed to find comfort in them. In him.
She grew bold, and he let her. A time eventually came when he could no longer help himself - but it was a hard-earned victory if there ever was one. Despite their bond, be it the one forged from their shared divinity or the one forged from their tentative friendship, his old habits and reservations still bound him in chains; memories from a time long gone, of men and women shying away from his sight. Of children rudely gawking. As darkness descended upon his soul, he came to resent them and their harsh reactions, for it was because of them that he looked like this in the first place. Every blade that carved into the flesh of his cheeks. Every creature with terrible claws that sought his eyes as trophies. Every gauntlet that looked just like his own that punched, slapped, poked; whatever the owner could do to leave behind their mark of conquest and shame. Silent Salt endured it all for their sake, and all the thanks he ever got was being gazed upon as a freak. A cautionary tale. A garish art display.
The world branded him a monster long before he ever became one. What reason did they have to be so distraught when he finally did? Is this not what they always believed him to have been anyway?
But White Lily took no part in this wholesale rejection. How could she, when deep down, she was hardly any different? And who would he be to continue mimicking his persecutors, like he has been for far too long?
One day, he found himself under a microscope again. It was cute, how her brow would furrow the slightest bit and she would start to purse her lips the stronger her single-minded focus became. A strand of snow white hair escaped its place atop her head and came dangling, teasing the tip of her nose; yet still, it went ignored in favor of the knight looming past it. Few questioned Silent Salt's bravery, himself included, but now... now he can feel his accursed face growing warm at the thought of tucking that rogue strand of hair behind her ear. Such a deceptively simple thing.
He stood still as a statue as her hands traveled up the metallic expanse of his torso. Up, up, up, along plates that had long lost their smoothness and shine, dipping into scratches and dents left by friend and foe alike, those old scars he wore on the outside. Sneaking past a familiar silhouette, just barely grazing the tips of that fabled fleur-de-lis. He never envied Burning Spice and where his own Soul Jam resided, but in hindsight, perhaps Silent Salt was never much better. With how seldomly he removed his armor, it may as well be his flesh by now. And within his flesh the Light of Silence nested, glowing brighter and emitting a faint pulse upon White Lily's brief disturbance. A broken heart, still as death, woken from its eternal slumber. Dared to beat again by she who held onto its missing half.
Her hands rose to his neck. Some ancient warrior's instinct demanded he take action against this would-be assassin, but he paid it no mind. He knew better. Not that White Lily wasn't capable of such barbarism; she has proven differently a thousand times over by now. He simply knows what an assassin looks like, and what a liar feigning innocence looks like, too - and now, in this moment, White Lily was neither.
His breath caught in his throat when those hands grasped at his head and he felt his helmet begin to rise. Slowly, carefully, betraying their master's hesitation. There was a slight tremor in her wrists - was she expecting him to suddenly reach up and grab her again? To try to stop her?
...The former came to pass, that much was true. But instead of pushing her away, this time, he found the courage to do the opposite: with his hands eclipsing her own, he guided them up and away, taking his helmet with them.
He loosened his grip just enough to let her hands go free. From there, he lowered his helmet and held it tight - so much so that that telltale rattling filled both their ears.
It felt strange for the wind and sun caress his skin again after so long. Once upon a time, he welcomed their embrace; once upon a time, they were a beloved respite, the only reward he ever wanted for himself after a long battle. They never ran away or judged him for this unfortunate face of his; in fact, once upon a time, he might've said and thought that they were the only ones in the whole world that ever believed he was handsome.
White Lily did not run away. She did not veil her disgust behind false politeness. She did not judge that unfortunate face of his.
All he could behold in her own face and eyes was that same old curiosity, adorned with that familiar glint of sympathy and shadowed by sorrow.
She gave her hands back to him. Cradled his face as he cradled his helm, albeit more gently. Ran her thumb over a faded gash in his cheek. Ghosted her fingertips over the claw marks crisscrossing over his eyes.
Silent Salt wondered if she'd already guessed his eyes are purple. He didn't ask. She probably did.
"It must have been terrible," she murmured, some of it to him and some of it to herself, as she observed the scar that threatened to split his hairline.
He nodded. She said no more, but there was no need; he understood what she meant. "It must have been terrible, how you earned each of these." "It must have been terrible, how others would shun you for what you endured." "It must have been terrible, how you felt compelled to hide behind a mask all this time, for lack of remembering any other way to exist." Only White Lily could say so much with so little. He always cherished it.
Through her quiet, endless searching, he could sense that she wanted to know more. In her eyes were questions that she wouldn't let out of her mouth. She wanted to know where the scars came from. What caused them. Who. How. Why.
Despite that morbid curiosity of hers, she did not ask. Although it likely pained her, she held her tongue and gave him peace. This was something else Silent Salt admired, something else that made him favor her above all others. For unlike others, her politeness was real.
He caught her stealing a glance at his lips, the faintest shade of pink tinting her cheeks as she did so. Gone were her sorrow and sympathy, leaving curiosity behind. In their place came... something else.
Perhaps the wind and sun weren't the only ones who believed he was handsome anymore.
She grew bold, and took a step closer - the only step left to take, with how close they already stood. Placing her feet atop his own in a small, adorable way to compensate for her height.
Only now did his supposed bravery return, and grant him the strength to tuck that strand of hair behind her ear. She seemed surprised, more so by his sudden gesture than she'd ever been by his face, the warm color in her cheeks turning more vibrant. He wondered if she could see that he felt just as bashful. She probably did.
She stood on her tiptoes, inviting him to tilt his head down with the soft nudge of her palm against the nape of his neck. He did so without resistance; now it was her turn to guide him.
She grew bold, and pressed a kiss to his scarred lips. And he let her.
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