Yeah. Of course I can. You don't have to worry over me.
[ she nods, a movement half-distracted by watching the aftermath of that bursting light — familiar and distantly strange, all at once. when she whips her gaze back to face him, strands of black hair lash against her cheeks, a little roughspun by the wildness of her wide-eyed panic.
still, it isn't a complete truth. a lie won't stitch together her injuries, but alina fixates on the threat of her status as a liability — a pawn the others would discard like a rusted and dulled tool, no longer of functional use. with a stubborn set clamping her jaw into a vice, locked into the steel tightness of an iron trap, she moves to follow that instruction — only for her leg to immediately buckle. a burning throb zings up her ankle, into her calf — twisted and scraped, in the commotion.
her lips part with a hiss, an excuse poised at the tip of her tongue: i can do it, driven forward by the momentum of her panic. only — there's no need for it. a whoosh of her lungs expels a startled breath as xichen scoops her up like a weightless feather, his footsteps floating with the same grace of one across shambling rooftops, until the bandits are a blip in the distance. ]
no subject
[ she nods, a movement half-distracted by watching the aftermath of that bursting light — familiar and distantly strange, all at once. when she whips her gaze back to face him, strands of black hair lash against her cheeks, a little roughspun by the wildness of her wide-eyed panic.
still, it isn't a complete truth. a lie won't stitch together her injuries, but alina fixates on the threat of her status as a liability — a pawn the others would discard like a rusted and dulled tool, no longer of functional use. with a stubborn set clamping her jaw into a vice, locked into the steel tightness of an iron trap, she moves to follow that instruction — only for her leg to immediately buckle. a burning throb zings up her ankle, into her calf — twisted and scraped, in the commotion.
her lips part with a hiss, an excuse poised at the tip of her tongue: i can do it, driven forward by the momentum of her panic. only — there's no need for it. a whoosh of her lungs expels a startled breath as xichen scoops her up like a weightless feather, his footsteps floating with the same grace of one across shambling rooftops, until the bandits are a blip in the distance. ]