Manning Thorsen believes in (othala) wrote in repose,
Re: Home: Iris/Manning
[It took him a moment to realize she was crying, but he didn't stop her. Tears, like rain, could be cleansing and it seemed like she needed it now, too much for him to think that trying to calm her out of them might be beneficial.
His arms went loose when she moved, and tight when she settled again, uncaring of the dampness that soaked through the cotton and clung to his skin. He'd been stained with worse during his life and probably would be again and if crying helped her to feel better, then he'd call it a good choice and do it again.
His fingers trekked slowly up her arms and down again, fingertips following the path of knuckles down between the valleys of her clenched fingers to wrap around them, squeeze, release. Her ankle, her side, her shoulder, up her neck and into her hair, tugging it into his fist long enough for her to get a sense of it before he let her hair fall down between his fingers and over the back of his hand.
And he kept singing, the same song, old and indecipherable, the language faded somewhere in channels of time but still remembered by him and now given to her, whether she would remember it or not.]