[Zelda is funny in that way, how she will occasionally jab him with absolutely stingless venom. It puzzles him, sometimes, but . . . in this moment, he thinks he's actually beginning to make sense of it. She's playing. Isn't she? Because he would do the same thing. Does do the same thing, once he becomes comfortable enough to be anything but stoic and cold with someone — although in this case, he seems to be the one to tease, and Zelda is the one to pretend to be offended.]
[Have they really known each other long enough to have a way about them, a pattern? Objectively they have. Subjectively it feels as though they just met, or as though he's known her for decades. Which is how he feels about everyone he cares about, he supposes.]
[There's no conclusive evidence that he's registered her reaction to his touch. A moment of hyperfocus, perhaps, his eyes looking somewhere else for a little while as he makes note of this new thing coming through the Bond. And within the Bond itself, there's only . . . a hum, curious and acknowledging, but nothing more than that. When he goes to meet her eyes again, she's looking at her shoes.]
. . . I do aim to.
[Make her feel secure, and all that. He drums his fingers along her waist, to make her jump or to remind himself that she is really permitting him to be here. His lead is gentle, though, a careful tempo, never too quick for her to keep up.]
no subject
[Have they really known each other long enough to have a way about them, a pattern? Objectively they have. Subjectively it feels as though they just met, or as though he's known her for decades. Which is how he feels about everyone he cares about, he supposes.]
[There's no conclusive evidence that he's registered her reaction to his touch. A moment of hyperfocus, perhaps, his eyes looking somewhere else for a little while as he makes note of this new thing coming through the Bond. And within the Bond itself, there's only . . . a hum, curious and acknowledging, but nothing more than that. When he goes to meet her eyes again, she's looking at her shoes.]
. . . I do aim to.
[Make her feel secure, and all that. He drums his fingers along her waist, to make her jump or to remind himself that she is really permitting him to be here. His lead is gentle, though, a careful tempo, never too quick for her to keep up.]
I'm glad you came, you know.