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[lumberlady]

« konoha » TEXT ✧ AUDIO ✧ VIDEO ✧ ACTION KONOHA ✦ JINBA
RESIDENCE ✦ Emerald Park
GEMBOND ✦ Emerald

"Ah, am I doing this right... ? Hello! This is Konoha! Please 'leave a message'!"

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[greenbriar]

[ He tenses for a moment when he feels her pull him in -- both confused and uncomfortable. With how absolutely mortifying this is, the last thing he wants is to be up close. He didn't mean to cry. He didn't mean to make this-- so...

Her forehead presses against his, and Cardan blinks away tears, uncertain of what's happening. It feels deliberate, but what is she doing? She raises her arm, and he...

He thinks he remembers.

He thinks he knows what she's doing, and why... Why? She had told him it was a special thing, a jinba custom, reserved for those closest to one's heart. And if that is true, if this is what it means, then this must be--

For some time, he only stares, uncertain, like an animal caught in a clearing. For some time, he only lets her words sink in, lets the gesture settle over him like a blanket of sudden warmth.

For some time, he says nothing. Then: ]

All right.

[ His voice is steadier than it was. And a part of him wants to hold her close, but instead he will... follow her lead, carefully, raising his arm to turn his own palm up to the sky in a mirror of hers. Because if she claims him, then he will claim her just as well -- as his, as family, as someone whom he loves even if it seems impossible that they should meet each other, that people so different as them should have grown this close.

He finds his voice again, finds a steadiness in the firm press of forehead on forehead, and though his lashes are still damp, the tears on his own face are drying. ]

Then I will try.

[ This, he can do. This, he can promise. ]

[lumberlady]

[They are close enough now that Konoha can smile, tremulous and shaky, without him being able to see... but for some reason, she feels like Cardan might be able to sense it anyway, because by tapping into his manna in an attempt to read his mood a bit better, she has opened herself up to the same. Including the way her hearts swell when she feels him mimic her gesture.

For a moment, she simply stays there, her eyes closed, just breathing in the space between them, remembering with a sense of irony and bewilderment that they had met so innocuously that very first time. A quick exchange at a farmer's market, a question about produce... to think it could have ended there, and instead... here they are. It feels like so many others have come and gone, but... they remained.

There is nothing shameful Konoha has ever found in crying or shows of weakness, but finally, with a little nuzzle up against his forehead, she moves her hand back from palm-up in offering to instead gently user her thumb to wipe his tears away, trailing slowly along his cheekbone and into hair so that she can gently pull him into a more conventional embrace. Nodding against his temple, she tries to encourage him to bury his face in her shoulder, a safe place to either leave more tears behind while "hidden" or to leave them dabbed away on her kimono.]

Say, Cardan...

[He said he would try, and that is all she will ask of him, which means what's left...]

How awkward a face do you think Estinien would make if he saw us acting like this... ?

[Is her question, soft and almost wry, as her hand strokes slow and heavy through his hair. How had she first met Estinien... ? Ah. Jellyfish. They'd talked on the network about jellyfish.

And she can see it now, how terribly uncomfortable their no-longer-shared companion might look to see other people so emotional in different ways about his return home. How if they looked close they might see past the feelings of unworthiness to something sincere and possibly touched. It's almost funny... Just a little bit.]

[greenbriar]

[ There is an odd calm in his heart where hurt and anger and fear had been just minutes prior -- a sort of clarity that's come to him, despite himself. How could he have been so foolish? Konoha is here, and even without the warm, glittering link of Synchrony between them, he would know her affection and her acceptance. It is as certain and true as the skies above them.

That he does not fully deserve it is beside the point.

Her question prompts a chuckle... and then a deeper laugh as the imagery sinks in-- ]

Oh, he'd be a man at the height of constipation. The emotional kind, mind you.

[ Stupid Estinien, not being around to torture with their friendship. Truly, it is unforgivable.

But right here, right now, perhaps it is alright. After all, would Cardan not have done the same--? Would either he or Konoha have stayed when they could leave?

Cardan cannot say he's happy about it. But here, with Konoha's warm scent in his nose and her strong arms around him, perhaps he understands, a little bit, just what she means. What she's been trying to tell him all this time. He closes his eyes and breathes her in, his arms tight around her, and just for a moment, lets himself be. ]