He speaks, something about a Saint, a quotation or another. She doesn't hear him, not as the fire springs to life, as the water in the air stills around them. It is such a small change, but one that she has not dictated. Her heartbeat is in her throat and her ears, her chest is tight--she had been so worried, so alone, and here he stands, lighting the candle's flame from afar as she had.
Johanna is in shock, she thinks, startled by the sudden lack of weight bearing down upon her. She has seen a man murdered today, a man who was quite probably not like her...not like them and her only friend, the only face who has become familiar to her--he is as she is.
The sudden shift in mood from confusion and tension to euphoria is so disorienting that, for a second, she feels almost as though she will faint. She is well braced on the table, though, and while she does recoil just slightly, she surges forward once she can think. She stands too close, she knows that, closer than people in this country are like to do. She takes his arms, grips him by the forearm with a tightness that is half surprise and half elation.
She is speaking, quietly and quickly, and with such enthusiasm that she has forgotten which language she should use. When she remembers to use this tongue, all she can manage to translate is:
"You too?" And she would curse herself later for the hope in that question, as wholehearted and naive as she had ever been.
no subject
He speaks, something about a Saint, a quotation or another. She doesn't hear him, not as the fire springs to life, as the water in the air stills around them. It is such a small change, but one that she has not dictated. Her heartbeat is in her throat and her ears, her chest is tight--she had been so worried, so alone, and here he stands, lighting the candle's flame from afar as she had.
Johanna is in shock, she thinks, startled by the sudden lack of weight bearing down upon her. She has seen a man murdered today, a man who was quite probably not like her...not like them and her only friend, the only face who has become familiar to her--he is as she is.
The sudden shift in mood from confusion and tension to euphoria is so disorienting that, for a second, she feels almost as though she will faint. She is well braced on the table, though, and while she does recoil just slightly, she surges forward once she can think. She stands too close, she knows that, closer than people in this country are like to do. She takes his arms, grips him by the forearm with a tightness that is half surprise and half elation.
She is speaking, quietly and quickly, and with such enthusiasm that she has forgotten which language she should use. When she remembers to use this tongue, all she can manage to translate is:
"You too?" And she would curse herself later for the hope in that question, as wholehearted and naive as she had ever been.