[The catch looses in Leander's throat, barely vocalized, strain of exertion releasing in surprise, inspired by both the surge of atmospheric weakness and the strange resistance in his own wounds. A bloody smear follows him down the wall. While his hand trails at a stubborn delay, the barest beginning of metaphysical theft is snuffed before it can siphon much of anything at all. (Perhaps it assisted Isaac in stumbling; he'd like to think so.)
It's amazing, isn't it, how many trifling scars a body can accumulate. There's a small cut on Leander's left cheek from some forgettable piece of shrapnel, and the wet patch in his hair is negligible, opened the first time by a childhood fall. His nose, fractured at the age of seventeen by Averesch's fist during a boys' quarrel, the skin split anew both inside and out. Any number of tiny marks on his hands, acquired in the course of work or play, little red beads on his knuckles, all those little lines too thin and pale to see beyond close scrutiny made bright all at once. The orderly wounds that line the sensitive medial surface of his biceps, though, and the slices up his forearms, contrived to look defensive—those are significantly less trivial.
Most meaningful of all are the marks left by Ilias (nearly a decade older than the one Leander gave to him). Sentiment aside, without a blade left in to staunch it, the deep wound in the back of his neck, alongside his spine, is
concerning.
(To say nothing of the internal warnings beneath his breastbone.)]
Don't—
[The shadow of a nightmare's wheezing desperation. Don't— you promised— Whatever his hands catch, slip against, they grasp hard. It isn't altogether friendly. Neither is the flash of his teeth, their creases limned in blood.]
no subject
It's amazing, isn't it, how many trifling scars a body can accumulate. There's a small cut on Leander's left cheek from some forgettable piece of shrapnel, and the wet patch in his hair is negligible, opened the first time by a childhood fall. His nose, fractured at the age of seventeen by Averesch's fist during a boys' quarrel, the skin split anew both inside and out. Any number of tiny marks on his hands, acquired in the course of work or play, little red beads on his knuckles, all those little lines too thin and pale to see beyond close scrutiny made bright all at once.
The orderly wounds that line the sensitive medial surface of his biceps, though, and the slices up his forearms, contrived to look defensive—those are significantly less trivial.
Most meaningful of all are the marks left by Ilias (nearly a decade older than the one Leander gave to him). Sentiment aside, without a blade left in to staunch it, the deep wound in the back of his neck, alongside his spine, is
concerning.
(To say nothing of the internal warnings beneath his breastbone.)]
Don't—
[The shadow of a nightmare's wheezing desperation. Don't— you promised— Whatever his hands catch, slip against, they grasp hard. It isn't altogether friendly. Neither is the flash of his teeth, their creases limned in blood.]
Help me, Isaac— we've got to go back there—