"All the Small Things." (Merosiel's PoV)

((part 1 http://tmoaa.blogspot.com/2009/12/all-small-things-astarins-pov.html ))
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“X no soran,” he says to me, ‘I am sorry’ my mind translates, and I’m suddenly dry-eyed. His voice is thick and wet and the tiny arms around me are like stone: cold, unyielding. Frozen. He’s still as stone, too, except for that voice that breaks my heart.

He can cry, is my first thought when I realize what his tone means.

Then I have to wonder if it is false, these tears and this openly displayed emotion that turns him into something resembling a real, living person instead of the doll he always seems to be to others. Are these merely my emotions reflected back at me through the warped mirror his talent is?

I cannot tell.

“I am sorry,” he repeats in his own language, and I realize that whether it is only a ghost of myself within his words or truth dredged up by this forced reunion, it does not matter right now.

“My back hurtsss,” I speak up, wince for the way my voice hisses, and then soldier onward: “I need to ssit since we’re gonna talk.”

He is reluctant to let go, but it is in his nature to respond to statements framed without options to them, his nature to step back and give me the chair he was in moments prior.

Sitting does little to ease the dull, steady ache in the small of my spine, but there’s distance between us, however little, and it lets me think instead of just react.

There are so many things that I should say, that I should ask, and yet we both are silent. He stands next to me, inches away yet untouchable because I refuse to trap myself in those cold arms again. I wouldn’t be able to let go.

Glancing to him--even sitting while he stands, our height is barely even--I note the familiar posture. His delicate hands curl at his elbows, arms folded behind at his back: he stands at attention. Do I tell him or ask him to sit? Too many thoughts, too many questions, too many decisions.

I slick a hand through my hair, feeling under my fingertips the fuzz at the sides of my scalp and the longer, tousled horse’s mane it’s styled in on top. I don’t know why I do it, when as soon as I let my hand fall, my bangs are in my eyes again and shading my face like a green, thick curtain. A lot of things I do are pointless, useless, and yet habit guides me in them anyway.

There are so many habits I am stuck in. Like staring when I think and forgetting that I am not always hidden while I stare and think.

He hates when people stare, as much as I do, yet the only sign of distress for it is the subtle shift of his weight on those small hooves; the gentle clack of them on the scuffed wooden floor is soft but there to my hearing.

I feel as if I drink in something grand, something comforting, and the notion confuses me. Nothing has changed. He is still the same. White skin that lacks much luster.  A mask that hides the ravaged face, one that I have seen only a handful of times but have memorized: the curve of his jaw and cheeks are somehow both defined and gently round at the same time. His gaze is dulled--with its lack of eye-shine and the deep-set, dark circles ringing them--so that he looks bruised, hollow-eyed. He appears so young and dead when he’s nearly as old as me and alive.

He looks wasted, ill, but I know this is how he always looks, and bitter, inner humor informs me he probably is in better health than I am right now.

He’s dressed in formal attire today rather than the rare sight of him in something other than familiar paladin’s armor. Always, he visits the cities on business, for work, never simply to visit.

What is there to say to the man you slept with out of loneliness, stayed out of comfort, and loved because he never asked for anything more? What is there to say to the man you ran away from because he simultaneously gave you one of the things you wanted most yet feared the most at the same time? What is there to say when you look at him and realize there could have been something more, if only the feelings were there?

I don’t love him the way I should, the way this mess between us should have been designed. I care for him, love him, but he is not the one I love.

The one I love is a man that both drives me to anger and drives me to smiles at every turn. The one I love is a man who is sometimes a woman, like me but not like me.

The one I love is actually two people, neither of which are this little draenei who should be the object of my devotion, especially when I carry what is partially his and partially mine.

What do I say?

“What do you think of the name Iossstoer?” My lips are quirking, but while the smile is real the humor in my voice is forced.

His pale blue eyes slowly slide from staring ahead to look at me sidelong. He blinks in that delayed sort of way he has that tells me he’s heard and processes what I’m saying. His silences and his patient, slow manner are things that do not irritate me where with anyone else they would.

“Does it... mean... something?” His words are monotone, halting. There is little change in him from switching to Common from Draenic. Most find him distant. I know he speaks like this because of his jaw, and again I find myself being understanding of him where I would normally not be with others.

Does that count as love? The kind I should feel for him? I wish I understood.

“It wasss the name of my An’da.” I answer, which is truth.

He blinks at me again, once, twice. The lusterless eyes tilt away, stare ahead again. “You know it to be a male, then?”
This floors me in some mild way; I hadn’t wanted to really consider which it might be because it lent less credibility to my denial.

His eyes are on me once more, peering without turning his head from facing forward, but they are not looking at me. Realizing what he looks at, I jerk my palms away from where they’d pressed to my belly and fist my hands at my sides.

“I don’t know,” is admitted, hardly audible.

“Ah,” he says, just as softly, and the tip of his tail flicks. I’m trying to decide whether this is agitation given the context, or thoughtful action, when he adds, “Whatever you... choose to do... is acceptable to... this one.”

This chokes me, too, cuts off any smart response I had so that my teeth click shut. I know well enough that he is not just saying that, and that it is not just referring to the matter of name--which I had tossed up as conversation material out of desperation and awkwardness.

“I’m not going to kill it,” I find myself asserting, reminded of the discussions Procrastin and I have already had; my declaration prompts him to look back up to me. The subtle expression lurking in his face is surprise, I think, hairless brows raised a fraction to press under the plated crest layering his forehead.

He is careful in phrasing a response, and I’m at a loss to understand whether that ginger couching of words is his usual halting pattern or because I have shocked him. “That... was an option?”

“I, well--” Stammering seems to be all I can do briefly before it spills in a rush and I’m filled with anger at first. “--Yeah, it wasss. What do you want me to ssay, Assstarin? I wanted to gut mysself, to cut it out, when I wasss firsst told!”

A wordless puff of air flutters the cloth over his face, and then he murmurs, “Thank you... for the restraint.” The way he says it is pained, and I am reminded to calm down because I’m hurting him again without intention, both with truth and with my anger. I might as well be pummeling him with my fists for all the delicacy I am using in keeping a lid on my emotions in his presence.

Restraint. Doesn’t he realize it’s just cowardice, indecision--not some moral goodness in me that changed my choice?

“I take... responsibility.”

“W-what?” I gape at him, ears up in confusion, both for the slight deviation in topic and for what he’s just said.

“If you... had gone through... with it--” there’s the smallest hint of something in his voice but I can’t name it, am afraid to. “--it would be... my transgression and... not yours. I am... the reason you are in... this situation.”
I struggle to stem those horrifying words, but can hardly utter a weak, “Assst--” before he actually interrupts, continuing.

“I did this... to you.” His voice is dead as ever, flat-lined, yet his tail is drooping against his calves and his head is tilted the barest amount, gaze fixed to the table in front of us.

The subtle weight of the guilt he’s shouldered these past few months in my absence, the guilt he has clearly tortured himself with, is a pail of cold water in my face. I had thought many things and assumed many reactions to all of this for him, but never this one, when I should have because it is the one that makes sense for him. And the one that hurts the most.

“Assstarin.” I’m leaning forward without really thinking on it, and cupping that pointed chin in hand. The fabric of his mask is rough under my fingertips as I tilt his head for him; I make him turn to look at me. “I don’t blame you.”
I am surprised, surprised as he is--those hairless brows lift again a tiny bit--to find this is truth, too.

“We were both careless.” Where is this coming from, this reasonable and mannered conversation? I expected to rail at him, or to cry, or to run again so I would not have to face the way those blue eyes look at me with such empty sorrow.

“As you say.”

Quiet, polite, dutiful Astarin.

Why can’t I love you instead?

“I, um, I got a lisst here of thingss we gotta talk about, thingss that Pro ssuggessted I asssk.” The parchment crinkles as I pull the paper out, unfold it. He watches quietly as I smooth it out on the table. There’s a lot of creases to the parchment; I’ve spent a lot of time folding and refolding and folding it again. The ink is smudged, as well, from my nervous, sweating hands fidgeting so during the folding.

“Ah,” he says again at last, complete with tail-flick. “That human... helped you with... this?”

“Yeah, Pro, he’ss... been helping me a lot.”

“I will... endeavor to thank him.”

The albino pulls out the daintiest pair of reading glasses I’ve ever seen, and tucks the metal ends carefully behind each ear. One finger nudges the glasses up his sloped, lightly flattened nose, and then he’s inclining his body just a little to peer at what I’ve written.

I can’t help but smile a little, watching; this, at least, is a little familiar and not so awkward. I’ve watched him read inventory lists countless times. I’ll be here a while.

Palming my chin in one hand, I wait.