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[sterngaze]

Liem Talbott

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Liem's mindscape is dark; quiet; contemplative. Any feelings or sensations that Liem doesn't intentionally project himself seem distant, as though echoing from a far-off room. Following any given sense to its source is bafflingly difficult.

Comments

[warmare]

[She believed he was going to trust her to walk! ... More accurately, it was probably more like "she isn't used to people supporting her, let alone physically, so of course she just believed she was meant to do it by herself, he'd already helped her once!" But.

She definitely hadn't thought she would fail that quickly, even having just unbalanced. But she picks up her leg the same way she would move her equine forelegs, too high, she moves forward with the same force from the back that she would normally, which pushed her hips out too far, and... at bare minimum, she still knows how her arms work. She manages to get her hands out in front of her on the way down and keep herself from slamming her face into the floor.

Still ends up... in a very undignified sprawl on Liem's floor with her bare ass in the air, her human legs awkwardly quivering and sprawled uselessly. Disoriented again, it takes her a second to turn her head from her weird low position and find Liem, but she looks...

Almost comically confused. It might be laughable if she didn't also look a bit genuinely scared and uncomfortable. A mix of all of them at once.]

Wh-

[She tries to lever back up, but there's no back legs to rely on, her weight doesn't shift right-]

Is the magic not working?

[That's definitely it.]

[sterngaze]

[Someone crueller might laugh at the spectacle Hayame makes, bare-assed and bewildered, sprawled on Liem’s floor. Liem stoically keeps even the barest hint of a smile from making it to his expression, squashing down the fluttering traces of his amusement to present only gentle, steady practicality.]

Your shape looks completely normal, [he assures her. Admittedly he’s trying not to look too much at her lower half, but he couldn’t really avoid seeing it when she’d taken a spill on his floor right in front of him. Everything down there does indeed seem to be in order.]

Here, hold onto me.

[Liem puts one arm around her, offering the other, palm up, for her to hold so he can help her back to her feet. She does not have the look of a woman who is likely to stand up by herself without falling over and/or flashing him again.]

I think you just need to get used to balancing with a human-shaped body. There’s less of you below the waist now, so you’re going to be more top-heavy. Don’t be afraid to hold onto things while you’re figuring it out.

"bare-assed and bewildered" sounds like an amazing memoir...

[warmare]

["Normal"... She thinks that means she still has her own face, but the rest... The rest feels so far from "normal" that she almost rejects the reassurance, even though she certainly knows what he is going for, saying that. She... Now that she is aware that she is exposed in such an immodest way it makes her almost hesitate to touch him (or anyone), but...

It's not like he-

Liem wasn't the sort of person to take advantage or selfishly indulge while another suffered indignity. So even though she is slightly ruddy in the cheeks with fluster over the entire situation and how absolutely foolish she had been not to think about clothing when considering the many things that might happen once she turned the crystal in the bracelet... She takes his hand to brace on, the other on the floor.]

I thought-

[... It makes sense, his explanation. It takes her longer to process it because she's distracted by so many other things, so many lost senses and sudden new ones, but it does.]

Perhaps the magic would make it feel natural, or... I was raised by humans, I know how they move...

[But knowing is not the same as replicating, apparently. With a grunt she manages to get most of her weight on her hands and rearrange her legs, pulling them in to try and find the right position to push off from. She's wincing the whole time, however, and she cannot help but ask as she tries to rise,]

Are human feet always this sensitive?

[#JustHoofThings]

the locals would eat it up

[sterngaze]

[Hayame had not thought Liem the type of man to drink people’s blood, either, and she ended up being wrong about that… but no, he is not the type to take advantage of her unplanned partial nudity. He keeps his hands and his gaze respectfully above her waist as he helps her steady herself as she gathers her limbs, as decorous as the situation will allow.

It makes sense, in some way, that she might expect the magic to help her feel more natural in her new shape. Liem would expect it as well—but perhaps it is simply too strange, and she is overthinking it. Perhaps it will become easier once the shock wears off.]

They callus with use, like hands, [he says. Hers, he knows, are hardly soft and tender things.] But yes, they are still fairly sensitive.

[More so than hooves would be, certainly. Once Hayame has gathered her legs into a more intentional configuration, Liem rises slowly back towards standing, pulling her up with him. He’ll help her over to the powder room, which is furnished with only a toilet, sink, and mirror, and is narrow enough for a person to brace their hands against the walls to each side.]

I’ll bring you something to put on your feet, too. That should help.

akademios best sellers list

[warmare]

[She really kind of wants to believe that the blood drinking thing was her only big mistake about Liem's character!!! Also, it wasn't even about his... okay, she had also believed he wasn't the type of person to conceal such an intrinsic biological fact about himself from a "friend", and that had been her error, but-

... He is the person she had awkwardly approached to attempt to understand her confusing mix of feelings over being granted a title as an honored citizen of Springstar while also knowing what she "truly" was... or, had been, in her world. And he is who she had trusted to see her like this, when she knew there was a chance that something might go wrong or strangely with such a drastic magical transformation, leaving her vulnerable.

She had... not thought "vulnerable" was going to mean "half-naked" and "struggling to walk", per se, but.]

Now I know why caltrops are so effective...

[The mutter is defensive and barely there, but with Liem's assistance she manages to get back to standing, and with his support she does make it to the powder room. Apparently it was largely a balance issue. The muscles are all there, they're fit, it's just... she is wobbling, accidentally trying to move the limbs with the same force and direction as her equine ones, and that... is not conducive to a smooth human gait. Once she has the sunk to grab on to she transfer to that, her face red, finally able to free up a hand to tug her ill-fitted robe down enough for bare modesty, knees locked up too rigid, putting too much of her weight on her heels rather than the flats of her new feet.

Shoes, right, she's going to need... shoes...]

... Thank you.

[For going to get those. For not laughing or leering. For all of it.]

[redsoil]

[ Why does love have to be easy, or beautiful? Why do only people who concede, who sacrifice their minds and hearts and personalities to sate someone else, who are not greedy, not rude, not difficult receive love? Why not people like Liem, who shies from being revered? Liem, with no self-worth? Or like Set, who is rude and nasty and defensive even in his best moments? What is love, if not for men like them? ( Like many people, imperfect and unlearned and mistrustful and even cruel on purpose? ) ]

I am not so different than I was before, that you cannot still trust me with your heart.

[ A lot of him that was good and righteous and sweet was gone, anyways. Torn from his body by violence, left to fester and decay and be picked over by vultures in the form of other men with hungry hands and mean eyes. Ruined by someone's insane idea of love and left to survive a shell of a man, a protector become a tyrant. And he still, even without his altruism, felt love. Was himself. Just a little sharper, given particular situations. Choices made would be built on different needs and foreseen results.

So, he breathes those words against Liem's bitten mouth and pushes himself against the other, sweeping hands across his face and throat, his waist. As if trying to touch all of him at once, not realizing that with his power, he honestly could. ]

Deliberately. That is how I feel everything for you.

[sterngaze]

It’s my pleasure. I’ll only be a few moments.

[It’s always Liem’s pleasure to be of service to someone he knows, someone he likes. He leaves her at the washroom door, making sure she’s not in any danger of falling into the room and cracking her head on one of the washroom fixtures before withdrawing. She can close the door if she likes, but it faces away from most of the rest of the space, so he is quickly out of sight regardless, padding away in search of clothing appropriate for a rather small woman.

Admittedly, the pickings in Liem’s home are rather slim. He has what would probably be—at least to Hayame—an embarrassing wealth of clothing for himself, which should be obvious enough given that none of it looks the same and he switches his outfits frequently. Most of his own things, however, won’t remotely fit a woman eight inches shorter than him and quite differently shaped.

In the end, he makes do. The stockings will probably still fit sufficiently, and he acquired a few pairs of spare slippers for guests after D had to visit in just his bare feet. One of these is small enough that it should probably fit her acceptably. The rest… well, he brings a few different garments down, and figures he’ll give Hayame her pick.

Admittedly, it takes him longer than just a few moments to come back, but it is not much longer. He returns promptly enough, pausing just outside the washroom door and knocking gently.]

Hayame? I brought some things for you. I wasn’t sure what you’d prefer to wear, so you have some options. They’re bound to be somewhat ill-fitting, though, for which I apologize.

[He hadn’t been expecting to need to provide spare clothes as well as slippers.]

1/2

[warmare]

[The instinct to close the door once Liem departs is there… but she does not, in the end. It feels foolish. After all, he has already seen most everything… and there is no one else in the house who might. Plus, it’s his house to begin with, and she thinks to lock him out??? He’s the one doing her a favor…

But once he has disappeared around the corner, she does drop some of the embarrassment… and reveals only to herself the fear and discomfort that had been lurking underneath. In the mirror she checks her face, and it looks the same, but there is somehow scared and weak looking in her eyes that she doesn’t like as she looks at her chest, watches herself breathe but ears internally with the sensation that it isn’t enough, she’s not breathing hard enough… Her hand goes to a breast and presses down, trying to feel for the second heartbeat she has always had but it’s not there, because of course it’s not, she only had one now, but-

Real humans couldn’t feel like this. Cramped and confined in their own bodies, like they had shoved themself into too-small clothing and couldn’t now get out. If she wasn’t careful she’d hyperventilate, she’d panic, and she can’t do that because it’s not even sensible and if she can’t master this form then what was the point—]

[warmare]

[Gods, her hearing is so bad now? She doesn’t hear Liem’s footsteps until he’s nearly back, but she manages to try and wipe some of the dysphoria from her expression by the time he returns, nearly falling but catching herself on the sink to pretend she had just been examining herself while he was gone, caught like a stork on one leg examine how her new toes can all flex and curl, trying to do them one by one but failing and only managing to move them as a unit. - Could humans move them individually? She’d never thought about it…]

Y- You do not have to apologize, Liem, I am the one who was so foolish as to not to think about what would happen to my clothing…

[Hindsight may be 20/20, but she still feels rather dumb about it…

Still, she manages using the wall to come closer to the doorway. What has he brought… ?]

[sterngaze]

[It is a strange, perverse sort of irony that the god who revels in chaos should be so deliberate and resolute in his devotion, and that Liem, who is deliberate in all aspects of his life, cannot help but want him, long for him, against all his caution and common sense. He is not, and has never been, a man who chooses to feel. It has always been something that comes upon him without his say-so, lures his heart into snares and makes everything in his life more complicated. Would that he could be content to keep to his habits, and not blunder into the same mistakes over and over again because of his own loneliness.

But perhaps Set would not love him for that. That is a strange thought—and a familiar one. Wondering what about him might be lovable, and what is not.]

Deliberately, [he repeats, breath ghosting over the desert god’s skin. It seems, to him, incongruous: just short of impossible. The warm hands wandering his body spark an apprehensive, untrusting hope beneath shivering skin, greedy and suspicious all at once.]

You will still choose to love me, even if I offer you nothing in return?

[Senseless. Impossible for him now, surely. He must gain something from such a love, after all.]

Even if loving me is difficult? Even if… [Somehow, horridly, this is the thing he struggles most to say out of all of it.] Even if I disappoint you, in the end?

[Even if he is not worth it after all?]

[sterngaze]

Ah… Well, even so.

[He might have considered the issue before she attempted the transformation, having more experience with magic than she did, and he didn’t think of it either. So, he feels he should still accept some of the responsibility for Hayame accidentally ending up pantsless around him.

He peeks into the washroom only long enough to see where she is, to determine how he should be delivering the clothes to her. Since she is nearing the doorway, he withdraws his head and instead sticks out his arm, which is draped with several different garments that are… all sized for him, obviously, but will hopefully suffice. Hanging from his hand is a pair of leather-soled women’s slippers.

The garments draped over his forearm include a pair of thin stockings; a high-necked, dove grey silk undergown that is definitely going to drag on the floor; a long, pull-over cotton shirt; and a pair of trousers that are probably both too narrow and too long. If he even owns underpants, he didn’t think to bring any.]

The trousers will probably be easier to walk in, since you could roll them up, but… we’re not really the same build.

[Unfortunately Liem’s clothes are all tailored to fit, which means that his pants are made for someone with two sticks for legs and no ass.]

[warmare]

[Mindful of her balance now that she knows that seems to be the source of her issues, Hayame is careful when she grabs the cloths, then the slippers. Using the sink again for balance by jamming her hip up against it, she tries to start sorting through things, figuring them out. The stockings are so thin? They're not even opaque... she's afraid to rip them... But... okay...

This is just. It's just a small challenge.]

I shall... Figure it out.

[Once she shrugs out of her robe, the undergown she gets on relatively stress-free, and just... having that on makes her feel immediately more at ease, even if she does recognize that walking in it like that could be a recipe for tripping, considering the difference in height now present between the pair of them. It was so strange to be confronted by it in that way, for it to be that way at all, and before she realized it... She had been staring at her human-shaped feet not moving for a few minutes.

Struggling to shake it off, she finally calls out,]

The gray fits.

[... Hhh! It takes a lot of effort for her to manage the stockings without falling over, eventually relying on sitting on the toilet to pull them on, then shove her feet into the slippers. From outside, Liem might here the sound of pattering as Hayame curiously slaps her now leather-sole-protected feet on the floor a few times. Better...

The trousers, though...

After probably way too long to be able to pretend she had managed dressing herself anything remotely resembling skilled, Hayame totters back into the doorframe. She is dressed (slightly swallowed) in the undergown and cotton shirt, she has the stockings and slippers on, but the trousers... seem to be around her ankles. If she looks a bit embarrassed, well.]

Liem, I do not think they are going to fit...

[She has... hips. And a slight rump. And muscular thighs. And now that she's wrestled herself into them, she has also had some problems getting... out...]

If I wrap my pelt and belt it, perhaps just the grey is enough... ?

[Maybe it will just look like a skirt........]

[sterngaze]

[Hayame’s slow, awkward progress in dressing poses no problem for Liem, who has a wealth of patience and spends this time puttering around the main floor, putting water on to boil and setting out some things for tea. He’s heading back to the washroom when she finally appears again at the doorway, and regards her thoroughly-covered form with relief, even if she isn’t currently what he would call “respectably” dressed.

He tries not to stare at the pants bunched around her ankles, below the baggy hem of the too-long gown.]

Ah… I thought that might be the case…

[Hayame is clearly a lithe woman, but unlike him, she has never struck him as particularly bony. It was probably optimistic of him to think she might be able to wear his trousers.]

I don’t think you’ll be indecent without them—it just might be a challenge to get the skirt to stay out of your way, even if you belt it.

[It should be well enough as long as she just stays around his house, but if she wanted to leave and buy clothes for herself, he thinks they’d need to pin it up.]

Well, we can certainly see. [A brief pause.] Would you like assistance?

[warmare]

[Hayame is... definitely not particularly bony, no. Svelte in some ways with the trimness that comes of athletic fitness designed for speed, yes, but not bony. She was firm in places with muscle, the softer parts of her femininity hidden away as best she could under tight bindings, but now bindings aren't saving her from the fact that in the place of equine withers she has hips? Hips? And a muscular human rump? And thighs?

It still doesn't feel real, in some ways.]

I feel decent enough... Surely it will be fine...

[His undergown on her is long, so most of her is covered. As long as it's covered... for now, that will have to be enough. She can address being able to fight or defend herself in a human wardrobe later. In Liem's home, she is not worried for threats. Holding on to the doorway she manages to get out of his pants just barely, saved only by the sheer strength of an archer's arms practically supporting her entire body weight at a certain point, but it's done, and she just-

His sofa seems... pretty far away now. Still, she is stubborn, she shakes her head slightly, lips pursed.]

No, I can manage it this-

[It's about three steps towards him that she wobbles and nearly pitches forward again, though she manages to catch herself by pinwheeling her arms slightly and turning her knees sharply. The steam of embarrassment is fairly radiating off her, but Hayame forces herself to remember that... she did not have to do everything by herself anymore. She had... friends. She was supposed to rely on them. Even if it felt shameful still, she... she has changed enough in her time here that she can force herself to admit,]

... Yes, please.

[She tries to at least straighten back up before he gets to her side, using the leather soles of her slippers to try and make sure her feet stay where she puts them, stiff and awkward.]

I was hoping... I thought that using this shape might grant me the ability to seek out the monsters coming from Kowloon, or avoid those in Highstorm who would spot a jinba at a thousand paces, but like this...

[She has to master being in this body, or what- What use was it?]

[sterngaze]

[Hayame’s initial refusal is enough to convince Liem to stand back as she wobbles and pinwheels her arms in an effort to avoid tumbling once more onto his living room floor, but only just. She is her own woman, so he won’t force aid on her for this when she doesn’t want it, but the urge to lunge nearer does twitch and jump beneath his skin, and he’s relieved when she seems to realize that she might well go sprawling again without help.

He steps closer smoothly, offering a steady arm so she can make her way over to the sofa for now.]

Having never walked on four legs, I cannot say I’d know how different the experience is—but you have hours yet of practice ahead of you, yes?

[She had said the transformation lasted close to half a day.]

I’m sure your balance will improve as you grow more accustomed to the shape.

[warmare]

[Shameful or not... Hayame makes herself take his arm. She had chosen Liem to be the one she first tried this magic around for a reason, and she... she must honor that. It would be even more shameful not to.]

I do, but...

[She had just. Yes, she had just assumed she would be a master of it from the get go. Humans? She knew them! She had been raised by their hands, she had marched beside them, she was trained by them, she knew how to fight them, so she knew their weaknesses and strengths, surely, but...

It is difficult not to pout. It would be terribly unseemly to pout. Or blush. Or grumble. So she will focus on copying how Liem moves when he escorts her towards the sofa, trying to put her feet down like he does, move his knees like he does. When they reach her goal, she eases down onto the delicately embroidered cushions for the first time since she had started visiting him, but there...

Her fingers tighten not on Liem's arm now, but the edge of the sofa cushions. Being vulnerable is not her strong suit, a warrior did not need such things and so she had never honed openness or communication. Still...]

It... It is more uncomfortable than I thought it would be. This body.

[She had hoped... to simply be magically good at using it, so she might be magically able to accomplish what she needed to with it, and then get back to her own shape as soon as possible. The idea that she might need to practice for hours... perhaps, worst case, for multiple uses of the thing... ?]

I cannot... smell anything, or hear anything... and everything is so- So tight...

[There is just one heartbeat pounding in her chest, lonely without the double thrum she has known all her life. She finds herself struggling to breathe if she accidentally forgets she's only supposed to have two lungs now, not four. If she did not acclimate... would she ever be able to pass for human properly no matter how well crafted the shape was?]

[sterngaze]

Tight?

[At first, Liem doesn’t understand. Shouldn’t his home feel more spacious to her, now that she is smaller? Certainly the clothes he’s lent her still threaten to swallow her whole, baggy across the shoulders and at the end of the too-long sleeves. But… he realizes, that is not what she means. It isn’t the clothing or the space that is too tight; it’s the body itself.

He hums, thoughtful.]

I suppose it would seem so. Do you think… you wouldn’t want to venture somewhere dangerous in such a body, after all?

[Though she’d said that was her intention, perhaps now that she’s experienced human shape firsthand, she might not be so keen on the idea. It is, after all, a far weaker and more fragile shape than her own.]

[redsoil]

[ Even as Set says what he does, he feels cold.

Sickened by himself, for had he not also whispered to Liem while curled in his lap, that he hoped they would have a relationship that was not transactional. That a price did not have to be paid by either of them. And then, he had given up the ability to truly make that a reality. Now, he had to get something from Liem. More than that, he wanted something from Liem — the acknowledgment, the companionship, the affection and trust. Why were those things he should not ask for? Why should he accept "nothing" as a valid response, as if Liem himself did not represent the whole of himself? ]

"You cannot refrain from one and still provide the other."

[ Liem had said that to him, and then — he had come back to him. Back from the comfort of Zenith, as he regained his hope.

His nose feels full. Why is it that he always ends up crying so pitifully around the people that matter to him, in Kenos? Set has always been such a sentimental thing, hiding the truth of himself behind harsh masks and determination and cruelty. Really, he's a huge romantic, a creature that wants to be loved and accepted, who has room to be himself and known.

( Even if I disappoint you, in the end? ) ]

Even if. Even so.

[ He sniffles, grossly and hates himself for it. Buries his face low in Liem's shirt collar and pretends like he's not about to leave a trail of tears and warm breath soaking the nice fabric. ]

I will not refrain from choosing you. Because I want — I want you to choose me too, for the same reasons you think you are not... worth it.

[sterngaze]

[A frown crumples Liem’s brow at the sound of the words Set repeats at him, dredged up from another private conversation months ago. Here, in this context, the words seem uncomfortably unyielding—more like a cage than an arch.

He knows he cannot receive love without wanting to give back in turn; the idea is not believable even in passing. But that is not the point. Whether he wants to give Set anything is not the point, and his embrace turns desperately tight, clutching at Set’s back as he grapples with his utter inability to be good for the man who is even now trying to confess his love for him.

It doesn’t matter. It doesn't matter if Set promises to choose Liem, if he says that he loves him, if he says he is worth it, because he still wants in return: Liem’s devotion, Liem’s loyalty, Liem’s love. And one thing he knows is that he has always disappointed the people who have wanted these things from him, and they have ever decided that they didn’t want them after all.]

I’m not.

[He mumbles it against the god’s hair, even as one hand climbs up to stroke the back of his head, a melancholy, self-comforting touch gentle over glossy red silk. Set is right, though. He’s not worth it. There’s something wrong with him—with the love he has to offer. He’s sure even Set will realize it eventually.

I want you to choose me too, he said.

It inspires a terrible panic in Liem, because choosing someone has always meant, to him, that he would try to be whatever they wanted—and that has always been the beginning of the end. Shame aches so wretchedly behind his ribs, strangles him so tightly, that he can barely breathe. He cannot stop his eyes from stinging again, spilling tears down already-damp cheeks.]

Set. I don’t know how: To love properly. To be worth loving.

You weren’t supposed to ask that of me.

[warmare]

[“Tight” is the best phrase she could come up with in the moment, but… also, because she fears if she actually began to describe the feeling, to attempt in more poetic terms to express the slightly terrifying lack of heartbeat she has known all her life, the way part of her brain kept thinking she wasn’t getting enough air, and the phantom sensation of thinking to rely on back legs that are no longer there, all while she felt half-blind and half-deaf and half-dull in her senses…

Well, she would sound like a madwoman, probably. More importantly… she might lose the courage needed to stay in this shape long enough to… Will it get better? Will she acclimate?]

Certainly not now…

[Or if this persists…. Not her second time or even her third time. Without meaning to, one of her hands moves to her breast to press her fingertips in over her heart as if searching for the twin sound that should be there.]

I wished… the entire point was not to be a liability, but if I cannot fight…

[A grimace.]

Fight as good as a human…

[… Sorry, humans, but.]

[sterngaze]

[Liem is usually pretty willing to go to bat for humans in general, but he can’t take offence at Hayame’s derision about human fighting abilities when he knows she’s used to being much stronger and faster and hardier than any human warrior could be. Why else were jinba warriors so prized, after all?

He thinks for a moment.]

From what I know, in my own world, transformation spells such as this were not expected to have a long learning period, regardless of how different the shapes might be. There was learning involved, of course, but if you acquired, for instance, a cloak that gave you the shape of a bat, you could expect to fly as one in short order.

[He’s rambling, he thinks. He’s never had to try to reassure someone in this circumstance before, and he’s a bit out to sea. Nonetheless.]

What I mean is—the skills and training you had before are still with you, and they are what you spent your entire life learning. Balance and ease in this body will come much more quickly, I think, once the strangeness lessens.

[Don’t horses learn to run within hours of birth? Not that jinba and horses are the same, but if a baby horse can run around right after being born, surely an adult woman can learn to do the same in a magical shape.]

[warmare]

[Though Hayame had once looked down upon humans for not only being weaker than jinba but needing to rely on tricks and numbers to subjugate a far more powerful species... She did know better, now, to respect what individual humans were capable of. Different worlds apparently produced different things... and sometimes there was magic to account for, but...

No, really she is just... she feels so much weaker in this body than she knows she is supposed to be. Than she has always been. When had she last felt this dull and puny? When she was a filly?　Hayame listens as Liem speaks, she is, even though she might look a bit distracted just with how shocked she still is from the transformation and the changes it has wrought.

What he says... it makes sense, of course... If it was discombobulating to the point that it could not be acclimated to... there would be no point. So she must be able to acclimate. She will. Just... now... this moment... As tempting as it is to complain, to continue trying to give voice to the dysphoric feeling in her chest and in her mind and in her heart... Hayame stays silent for a moment, forcing her hands to pull away from listening to her heartbeat and to instead fall to her... lap. Her lap must be... softer now. Not hard with equine forelegs, or hooves to accidentally sit on, or her muscular dun lower chest... Would-

Her cheeks are slightly ruddy, but. She manages a smile. She is still not good at it... At least, she feels like she isn't. The corners of her lips sometimes twitch or quiver from strain, muscles unused for so long, but-]

... Thank you, Liem.

[He is. Trying to reassure her. She wishes to acknowledge that, even if actually feeling comfortable will take time. She had asked for his help, let him know in her unspoken (directly) way that she trusted him not to laugh or judge her, that... she could risk being weak in front of him. Because they were... friends. So for that, she tries... She does try to smile, and even say something more light-hearted. Maybe he will smile, too, then-]

When I asked you for lessons in dancing, I did not think I would ever be able to have two legs instead... I imagine its easier that way...

[And after all that effort, actually, thinking she would surely need it at a masquerade ball... No one had asked her to dance. She remembers being... weirdly proud, that her reputation was so fearsome that no one had the gall, and weirdly offended, at the same time. Hah. Was that... really a year ago... ?]

Perhaps if I master walking and fighting, I must retake the course...

🎀

[sterngaze]

[Hayame smiles so rarely that when she smiles for him, even small and uncertain as it is, Liem can’t help but smile back, warmly pleased. Has he helped her all that much today? Perhaps not, in any big, concrete ways, but he’s helped her enough for her to feel like smiling, and that must be significant.]

I would be happy to teach you again, once you’ve mastered moving on two feet.

[The dances he knows are all meant for two-legged people, of course—and those who aren’t seven feet tall besides. He imagines it would be delightful to try dancing with Hayame again, when she’s not at a natural disadvantage in trying to learn the steps.

For now, he rises in response to the growing whistle of the kettle he’d left on the stove.]

But for now… we break for tea, and then we can see how your legs treat you.

[redsoil]

[ Bending his spine, he leans his upper half away from Liem. Unwilling to break from his hold entirely, but badly needing to see his face as those cool fingers stroke through his hair. What Liem says and what Liem does confuse him, so much. He says he cannot love, yet the simple acceptance he offers and the gentle contact ( the commiseration over their struggles with diet, with food; the horrific similarities between the men who desire to own them; the agonizing lack of self worth ) are more than Set could ask for. Are they not forms of love? Could they not be?

His hands sweep up, to the wetness on Liem's cheeks. Such a stoic man, and here he stands crying — and why? Because someone wants to love him and be loved in return? Liem is crying. The way that Set had wept in his lap, sobbing because he hadn't even had the opportunity to help this man at the time and he had thought him lost. Had prepared, then, to still be his friend even if it meant ending his life to keep his promise to his son. And then Liem had come back, and in part for him. How strange, to be shown such consideration!

So, he dips down a little, to place his face at the line of Liem's eye — and drags the warmth of his tongue, animal-like, across the salt of his tears before meeting his eye.

]

I do not believe that about you. Any of it. Let me learn who you are, and determine that for myself. I do not need you to love me — I want you to. And if... you do not, that is fine. But, I will not accept that you are incapable of it.

[sterngaze]

[Though Liem doesn’t know what to expect in response to his denial, he knows that what he has offered Set is not what the other man deserved to hear, and not what he wanted. A helpless, unhappy anxiety squirms through him even as he says it, uncertain what this, too, will mean for him. For them. If only he could be better… but he doesn’t know how. Ultimately, he can only be what he is.

He is not expecting, when Set draws back to look at him, the red-eyed stare and the hands on his face to be followed by the god’s tongue dragging over the damp of his cheek. Liem’s expression, stern and frowning in an effort not to crumple in abject misery, falters in bewildered surprise. He is suddenly left completely lost, having no ready reply to anything that is happening in this moment.

He opens his mouth, but it is a while before he can make anything come out.]

All right.

[Shockingly, he finds that when Set says he doesn’t need his love, even if he wants it… he actually believes him. Maybe it’s because he is divine, and ultimately doesn’t need anything from mortals aside from their worship. (Maybe it’s because his love isn’t shallow.)

Liem leans his face gently into one of the hands framing it, feeling overwarm and nervous and a little sick. He desperately wants to just go lie down.]

I’m sorry I called you a liar. That was unfair of me.