driftfleet | Heron May mingle

[ He watches her go through the motions with the cleaning it and each individual knife, testing the balance and feel in her hand. He does much the same when he takes them out for a cleaning. It's good to be familiar with how they handle in your grip. Being rusty doesn't aid with that. She can understand the preparedness, at least. ]

You can have it.

[ Mostly, he keeps buying weapons so that there's not a shortage. He doesn't necessarily need more than a few, but keeping extras on hand is nice. Just in case of another emergency, his crew needs to be armed. ]

[Wait, what did he say? Did he--]

Are--are you sure?

[Would he really say that if he wasn't? If she was radiant before, she's absolutely incandescent now.]

Thank you! This is the nicest thing anyone's given me!

[Because all of the art supplies, the thoughtful gifts--they're important. But this is a decent knife. It's a little sliver of peace of mind, of being slightly less defenseless when she feels nothing but helpless, most days, thanks to her injuries. And it also feels like a compliment, because you don't give a knife to someone unless you think they know what the fuck they're doing with it. It feels like an acknowledgement of competence, which is something she craves almost as much as the simplicity of touch. And coming from Winter? It's an even bigger deal.

She's grinning ear to ear, but her throat feels kind of thick, like there might be some tears, but they're happy tears.

She carefully puts the knife away and sets the box aside so everything is safe and taken care of, because it's habit.]

And I'm gonna hug you.

[Hopefully he doesn't mind. Does he look like he minds? If not, he's getting an armful of tiny pink-haired murder machine.]

You're welcome.

[ He absolutely trusts her to keep the knife in perfect condition, because weapons are similar. They grow rusty with disuse and care, and there isn't room for either on a mission.

Her expression is blinding, and it takes him a moment to properly register. Oh-- hugging. Right. Winter mentally prepares for Wrath getting closer. He doesn't know how this is the nicest thing anyone's given her, because a secondhand knife isn't really that great.. As long as she likes it, that's what matters, right?

Her arms go around him and a few seconds after, one of his own wraps hesitantly around her back in return. ]

[She buries her face against his shoulder for a moment--don't go near the neck, that's a bad place for most people--and if her voice comes out kind of thick, maybe that'll just get put down to being muffled.]

Thank you. It means a lot to me.

[It means he trusts her enough to have a knife in the first place. It means he doesn't think she's an incompetent, or a head case that's going to hurt herself, or the other horrible things that kept her from legally getting certain types of weapons back in Proles, thanks to the medical orders appended to her file. So maybe that also means she's okay. Is she okay? Winter thinks she's okay.

It feels really good, hugging Winter. Because it's an affirmation that yeah. This is a real thing. He's really her friend. And he's got her back.

...and he smells really nice. That is probably not an appropriate thing to be thinking. The few shreds of brain-to-mouth filter she's got to her name thankfully keep that from popping out.]

[ It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, Wrath knows herself better than they do- even if she doesn't think so. If she didn't think she could handle having a knife, she would have been hesitant. Instead, she's grateful. He's glad that he can provide her some level of security. This place has dulled his reflexes. He understands more than most how having some level of defense can make it a little more okay. Fuck, he doesn't know if he'll ever fully stop sleeping with a weapon under his mattress. As much as he trusts his crew to leave him in peace, he knows that people have ulterior motives. Better to have the upper hand... just in case. It hasn't escaped him that he has someone who can manipulate metal on his ship.

Winter let's her hug him long as she needs to, though his pursue starts to stiffen before too long. Hugs are still.. Iffy. If only because he's not gotten too many in recent memory. ]

[She doesn't hang on too long, even though she'd like to. She's hugged Maine before, she knows not to push it. One little squeeze and she lets go, scoots back to her original spot. She has to wipe her eyes with the back of her hand, but hopefully Winter will pretend not to notice.

Then she picks her needles back up and regards them with a little dismay.] I think some of the yarn fell off?

[Help, Winter. Make it work.]

[ He pulls away, not mentioning the glassy look in her eyes. It's not important, and people are entitled to privacy, even if they're sitting right there.

Winter looks over her work, helping her readjust. ]

Here. [ He picks up one of the smaller tools he'd stabbed into the skein of yarn, pointing to the lost loops before using the tool to pick them out. ]

Now slide them back onto the needle.

Okay. [Military maneuvers have been accomplished with less profound concentration than she puts into getting the yarn back on the needles. (Then again, military maneuvers are easy if you ask her. This is new and therefore not easy.]

Got it. Thanks, Winter.

[And she goes back to methodically knitting, feeling extremely happy.]

Heron May mingle

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