One thing he did know about Emerie… was that she was accepting.
“I also did not know I could do this.” He had to admit, it was harder to see her like this. He needed to lean to the side just to look at her feet. “But I have seen other Mavka do it. I thought if I walked like you, you would be more at ease with me.”
Her little brows drew together as her pale-pink lips tightened. “But I have been at ease with you.”
His sight shifted to a reddish pink once more, unsure if he should be truthful or not. Ingram wanted to be closer with her, and he worried that revealing the depth of what he wanted, and still didn’t fully comprehend, would make her unsettled.
To test her, Ingram hesitantly reached forward.
Her eyes warily darted to the side at his claws nearing, but she didn’t flinch or try to evade him. When he was able to touch his careful fingertips to her marred cheek and then brush his claws into her hair so he could hold the side of her face, his heart tightened with tenderness.
He decided to just brave it, already frustrated with his obsessive thoughts of her.
“I don’t know how to learn about you. I know your name, and that you are a Demon hunter, but I do not know where you came from. I do not… know why you are here with me.”
Why had Emerie chosen to come on this journey with him?
Part of him hoped it was because she wanted to be by his side after helping him in the mountain stronghold. Did she save him because she had been able to see he didn’t want to be a terrifying monster? He’d been seeking for some way to escape the loneliness that had bitten its fangs into him after Aleron was taken from him, and he thought maybe she recognized that.
I want her to share with me. In the same way he wanted to share with her, but found it difficult to do so whenever it pained him.
He wanted her to take that pain away somehow.
He wanted her to fix it.
She was smart and kind, she must know of a way.
If she had her own pain, Ingram wanted to frighten it away. To be a source of comfort, as she had already been for him – without him needing to ask her to.
But he didn’t know if she held fears or sadness within her.
Since she hadn’t answered him, her lips opening and closing like she was unsure of what she wanted to say, he braved stroking her cheek with his thumb. He was careful of his claw near her eye.
“There are times where you look into the forest with a sad expression on your face. I do not know if that is because of me, or if something else is saddening you.”
Her eyes lowered to avoid his stare. “I’m fine, Ingram. You have enough on your mind.”
A low growl rumbled in his chest. He pushed her face back up to meet his own, not liking that she wouldn’t look upon him. “You smile, but it is only ever at me.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” she laughed, fidgeting and rubbing her elbow.
As much as he liked her smiles, and that they mostly appeared genuine, he shook his head. “Sometimes they are lies. When you think I am not looking, that is the only time I am truly seeing you. Yet, you do not show me this side willingly.”
Day had brightened the world six times since she freed him, and he knew nothing more about this creature than he did that first night.
“It’s not like you’ve asked me anything.”
When her hair lifted and waved due to a light gust, Ingram stared raptly at the long strands. He brushed his claws and fingers down them, touching them, and found they were even softer than he’d imagined. They were silky, even as they caught on the rough callouses of his hands.
“I do not know how to start this with you,” Ingram admitted. Yellow brightened his orbs at being allowed to play freely with her pretty hair; especially after so many days from when he’d first callously yanked it. “I have never had a human companion before.”
She let out a deep, long breath, and her shoulders became less rigid. “Well… what do you want to know then? I’ll try my best to answer you.”
That sounded like she was intending to hide things from him.
The desire to trap her to him gripped him like a set of claws around his throat. Ingram fisted the long strands and leaned forward to tower over her. His growl was a warning for her not to hide things, but also in anticipation of discovering all about Emerie.
“Everything,” he rumbled. “I want to know everything.”
Ingram would start by learning all of this little female. Like him and Aleron, he wanted them to share everything. Their thoughts, their touch, their hearts. In doing so, maybe she could fill the yawning hole in his chest he was desperate to be rid of.
At least… until Aleron was returned and made him whole once more.
“M-maybe you should change back,” Emerie suggested through clenched teeth.
Pushing up on Ingram’s chest, her hands cupping hard exposed bone, she used all her might to keep him upright so he didn’t fall. At least, until he was able to support himself again. She kept her hands out, ready to catch him – which was probably a stupid idea.
This is how I turn myself into a Duskwalker-flattened Emerie pancake.
“No. I want to do this, to walk like you and the other humans,” Ingram argued.
Why does he always argue with me?! She mentally threw her hands up.
He made it a few steps before he stumbled, but it was at least further than the last attempt. It was like his knees wanted to give out after too long, or his equilibrium was off.
Fucking hell. It’s like walking with a drunk.
A drunk that was seven and a half feet tall and would probably kill her if he landed on top of her. A drunk that didn’t want to listen, who she was forced to chase after.
Then again, he was getting better the longer he tried.
At least he’s not pestering me with questions. Or, more importantly, trying to get her to talk about herself.
She wasn’t against revealing her past because he was a Duskwalker. She didn’t mind what he was, and she’d grown to trust him and his big claws a long time ago.
I just don’t want to burden him, she thought, steadying him for only a second before he strode forward.
Emerie doubted any human had pleasant stories. Almost everyone she’d ever spoken to at the guild had some dark past, some worse than hers, many not. It’s why most people joined in the first place.
It was hard to hide how terrible her life had been when it was so easily seen on her face. The fact that Ingram hadn’t asked her about it, when most humans liked to ask her what had caused her scarring, was a relief.
She didn’t want to talk about that night.
A night that had left her not only disfigured, but also startlingly alone in this big world filled with sharp teeth.
Sharing any part of her life would, undoubtably, force her to talk about her worst memories. It was impossible to skirt around them.
Just as it was impossible to forget them.
She wished she could. She wished she could bury them deep within the recesses of her mind and pretend they didn’t exist. She couldn’t, not when they painted a story on her face she was forced to read every time she saw her own reflection in a mirror, or the bottom of a cup.
They haunted her wherever she went, and not even sleep could give her peace since they lingered in her dreams.
It didn’t help that whenever she told most people, their expressions would turn sympathetic.