[ Amorphous splotches of color, all variegated and of different intensities, are far from the strangest things that the King has encountered in navigating the skeins of dreams. The subconscious mind can be the architect of landscapes too fantastical to exist in the realm of the mundane; it can revisit memories and it can alter them; it... can also conjure together simple things, like little pleasures and larger desires (the attainable and the not-so). Not to mention that, at its worst, it can put together such codswallop that no meaning could ever hope to be divined from it. But this, right here? It's important, a part of Paloma that the Fledgeling herself has no wish to cower away from.
When she hesitates, sets the tips of her fingers against his talons, asking him if he's sure that he wants to turn his eyes from this, Asura understands two things: the first, he cannot protect Paloma from this dream-memory (it is not his place, she did not ask to be saved). The second, if he should avert his gaze, prioritizing Paloma's privacy above all else, he'll have broken his vow—
("Asura, are you actually sure you want what's in me?")
—I do, he'd said back then, and he meant it. And if she's inviting him in, allowing him to be privy to all this damn humidity and sweaty-student stink (and the Ginger blob of color who's immune to the swelter and heat), he's not going to turn his back on it (on her). Paloma, she's not looking him in the eye, but... ]
I do. [ And so: his vow remains the same. ] But on your terms, Paloma.
[ ("Who will guard me? Who's going to hear my secrets after he trusted me with his? You. It'll be you.") ]
You're lucid dreaming now, but before it was different. Don't you go and disappear on me again, yeah? [ His free hand touches lightly to Paloma's face, after that, delineating the shape of her jaw with barely-there touches; tucking a sweat-damp strand of hair back, behind the shell of her ear. ] No one deserves to be subjected to another piss-poor drawing of mine just so I can grab your attention again.
[ Much as he'd enjoyed that, much as he'd put on a repeat performance. ]
Not when you're the only artist here, and all these colors [ a gesture to all those color-blobs and smears ] are yours to pain the rest of your story with.
no subject
When she hesitates, sets the tips of her fingers against his talons, asking him if he's sure that he wants to turn his eyes from this, Asura understands two things: the first, he cannot protect Paloma from this dream-memory (it is not his place, she did not ask to be saved). The second, if he should avert his gaze, prioritizing Paloma's privacy above all else, he'll have broken his vow—
("Asura, are you actually sure you want what's in me?")
—I do, he'd said back then, and he meant it. And if she's inviting him in, allowing him to be privy to all this damn humidity and sweaty-student stink (and the Ginger blob of color who's immune to the swelter and heat), he's not going to turn his back on it (on her). Paloma, she's not looking him in the eye, but... ]
I do. [ And so: his vow remains the same. ] But on your terms, Paloma.
[ ("Who will guard me? Who's going to hear my secrets after he trusted me with his? You. It'll be you.") ]
You're lucid dreaming now, but before it was different. Don't you go and disappear on me again, yeah? [ His free hand touches lightly to Paloma's face, after that, delineating the shape of her jaw with barely-there touches; tucking a sweat-damp strand of hair back, behind the shell of her ear. ] No one deserves to be subjected to another piss-poor drawing of mine just so I can grab your attention again.
[ Much as he'd enjoyed that, much as he'd put on a repeat performance. ]
Not when you're the only artist here, and all these colors [ a gesture to all those color-blobs and smears ] are yours to pain the rest of your story with.