Not from her.
Not from anyone.
But Ido.
I want to know what she dreams of. What makes her laugh when no one’s around. What lines crinkle beside her eyes when she smiles in daylight. I want to hear the timbre of her voicewhen she’s frustrated. And when she’s happy. And when she’s afraid.
I want to hear it all.
Iwanther.
And that terrifies me more than any blade, any enemy, any storm this world can throw at us.
She shifts again — more awake this time — and breathes out softly, eyes half-opening. For a heartbeat, she doesn’t see me. Then her gaze slides over my form, confusion blinking behind sleepy amber eyes.
“Maug?” she whispers.
That single word — my name — slips from her lips before her brain fully engages. It rolls across the silence like an invocation I never expected to hear again from her.
Her eyes search my face — carefully, quietly, without fear.
I should say something. I should tell her to go back. To sleep. To leave this place. To not bind herself to a creature like me.
But her eyes are too honest.
Too unguarded.
Tooreal.
She watches me with a kind of curiosity that isn’t afraid.
“Are you awake?” she asks, voice soft and warm and still brushing sleep from its edges.
I nod slowly. Carefully. Not wanting to overshadow her with my presence, but also not wanting to leave her side.
“Good,” she murmurs, a small smile lifting at the corners of her mouth. “You didn’t sneak away last night. That’s… impressive.”
Her humor is tentative — like she’s unsure if jokes are still allowed in a world this broken — but it’s there nonetheless.
I shift, lowering myself a little closer — never too close — but enough so that the warmth between us doesn’t feel like an accident.
“You stayed,” she says simply. No accusation. No questioning. Just a fact.
I nod again.
That’s all I can manage.
There’s something in her eyes — acceptance, maybe — that loosens the weight in my chest. Something unguarded and unafraid.
But I still do not speak.
Not with words.
Not yet.
Instead, I let the silence between us do the talking — a quiet language older than fear, older than words, older than the vows of solitude I once swore to uphold.
In that silence, I feel it:
