[ A choked little sound escapes her and she's clinging to him in the next moment, and whatever else he is, whatever else he doesn't understand, he always understands this: Maelle, and what she needs from him. What she needs now is comfort, to hold onto him, so he draws her close and lets her hold him as tightly as she needs, smiling a little at the brush of her lips over his cheek, the same sweet, innocent kiss he remembers from so many bedtimes and long chats and thanks given.
He leans his head against hers and just lets himself linger there for a long moment, everything he'd ever wanted suddenly here in his arms, suddenly real, before his voice comes again in a murmur, rumbling low in his chest. ]
But I don't understand how I'm... How am I back? How am I.... alive?
[ Destroying death was never going to bring back all the people they've lost, all those Expeditioners they passed on their long trek through the continent. And if he really had died, and not simply been gone, unreachable but still clinging to life, then how can he be here now, feeling Maelle in his arms, feeling the air as he pulls it into his lungs?
And where had he been in all the time in between? ]
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He leans his head against hers and just lets himself linger there for a long moment, everything he'd ever wanted suddenly here in his arms, suddenly real, before his voice comes again in a murmur, rumbling low in his chest. ]
But I don't understand how I'm... How am I back? How am I.... alive?
[ Destroying death was never going to bring back all the people they've lost, all those Expeditioners they passed on their long trek through the continent. And if he really had died, and not simply been gone, unreachable but still clinging to life, then how can he be here now, feeling Maelle in his arms, feeling the air as he pulls it into his lungs?
And where had he been in all the time in between? ]