“… Mhm.” Gratitude. How do you properly express it? Where the vermilion fabric brushed along her cheek, fingers pressed tighter upon it and let it rest on her shoulders. The gesture alone was enough for her thanks to be given, but the warmth itself was an entirely different sensation. It felt… Used. His own body heat absorbed and brought to the proper height… Like transferring to her. But the realization still stood that she was dumbfounded by the action. To give her something that was for protection, did she appear so naked to him? The proud stance taken by a martial artist in tank top and skirt, the physicality never something she questioned. For the art of the body was what she mastered, fist strength while shoulders pride.
Here it was different. When she slowly took step forward, there was a sway behind her. Tickle to her calf as tattered ends met with skin. And it was protection, one that he had for years in his slumber. Was the cold his to bare? Hadn’t the slim figure and haphazard consequence of experiment and heartache been enough, to numb the skin and bring forth an entire haze founded in the passing of a flower so whole and alive? Sheen to the eyes and hair alike, but hers was one different than that. Solemn. Yet caring just the same. She worried that he might have needed this cloak more than he knew. And as they went through the snowy caverns past the Forgotten City, the martial artist heavily considered giving it back to him. “Where… Did you get this? It’s so warm…”
Without his protection, the wind seems cold, far colder than the unforgiving rock walls of a basement, and far fresher without the scent of decay hanging in the stagnant air. Snow falls and catches in his hair, but he hardly notices. He desires to keep the rest of the party in sight so as to not fall behind, but he wants no questions on his smaller appearance. Intimidation, like silence, is a heavy wall, one he dislikes being without. It is amusing, how the others are so wary of him, and how right they are to be. It is pleasing. The inquiry causes him to glance back at her. The origin of his cover…Now that brings back a memory. Searching through belongings in the Manor, not knowing what he would find, and finally…a trunk with the name Grimoire Valentine. Not complete; merely a mantle with leftover material, clearly meant to have been finished as a cloak. There is a reason the long cape was thinner than the cowl. He himself had sewn it onto the gift his father never gave him. Funny, the things one does to stay warm at night. Closing his eyes and passing through the narrow entrance to a tunnel, his voice echoes off the cavern: “My father made it." Seeming hard, his voice covers the emotions that he feels with it. It would be unsatisfactory to present as weak.
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