Re: Élan/Ronan: lucky #7
Were he a man given to laughter, he would have then. Perhaps it would have been a booming thing that filled up room and air with joy, or as quiet and muted as the rest of him. It was hard to guess what might have been when it came to Élan.
He waited, conscious of those that surrounded him, and more acutely aware that those with gifts needed a protection rather than a declaration. "I'm not," he said as soon as they were far enough away, an answer to the assumption. One's mind belonged to one; he could only feel the weight of Ronan's decisions and that brief blush of humanity as it touched his awareness.
As they drifted into the woods, the taps from his cane became slower as if it wasn't quite needed in the way that most people believed it was. Then slower still when more things pinged off his awareness with something distinctly wrong, like rubbing a cat's hair up their spine rather than down. The taps stopped all together, his footsteps stilled. Something was wrong, every joint and sinew in his body felt it, but this was their choice. The culmination of activities and there was only one way to go.
His lips set in a hard line as he followed Ronan and the thing that was not right, but was still there. If he followed slower than he had into the woods, well that was just a happenstance wasn't it? A small delay as if he could somehow slow things down, compensate for the events unfolding. "Ronan," softly. As if it would somehow slow the other man down, even when he knew it would not.