Andarin: The Mountains: nicodemus ;

astarte;

He burns, flickering as if he cannot stand her touch, and something in her understands it – she has not embraced her own daughter, Accendare blazing, for too long, and the emptiness flames within her as surely as his fire snatches at her breath. She had wondered about him – where he had gone, and what hounds had so nipped at his heels to drive him away so suddenly: she does not disrespect him by dipping into his mind, though it is all she can do not too. She can see it as if it were a span of wind, his thoughts and memories arcing about his head like – she could reach out with her mind, and touch it, be subsumed by it. It would be the most intimate of intimacies, she reflects, looking at Nicodemus as if she has never seen him before – knowing that she would not betray what trust she saw in his eyes, bitterly as she had everyone else.

Thank you, for your friendship, she thinks, her eyes gently creasing with a secret smile and glowing all the more, green fire, for the thought. It means more to me than you know, and he will never know, but for the secrets she keeps close to her heart.

It stings her, and shames her, but for a brief moment she is glad he is not an Oracle, and so not faced at every moment with the choice.

“Yes,” she sighs, but not unhappily; she tucks her head under his and simply breathes, happy for once that her mind is not spinning with thoughts that are not her own.

“Everything’s fine.”