People disappear. Blaze is used to that. They walk out into the wild and they drop off the radar. Maybe they like working alone, maybe they want time to think, maybe they're caught up pursuing their own quests. Maybe they've made a stumble or a wrong turn and found jaws waiting in the darkness. Eventually they'll come back, be it weeks or hours or years later. Sometimes they don't. It's cause to celebrate every time one runs into a friend, be it on a smoking battlefield or in a Tower bar.
If Jesse had been another Guardian, that would have been all there was to it and perhaps she wouldn't even have been concerned. But the Rotten were more vulnerable, and the fact that all of them seemed to have gone presented some unsettling possibilities. It wasn't patience that kept her from dwelling on them, just the inability to handle things she could neither verify nor change.
She chose not to expect the worst. But as the months passed, at some point the possibility had been taken out and placed on a shelf in the back of her mind. Just in case she needed it.
And now she doesn't need it. Neither is she going to dwell on the last time they spoke, or (yet) how much has happened in the interim. It's not like the changes are visible, anyway. She has slightly heavier armor, and instead of a brightly embroidered mark there's a heavy bundle of stained and moldered cloth at her hip. Everything else looks the same when she steps back and takes another look at him.
"I won't pretend you didn't have us worried. Angel said you hadn't called on her- had to hope that was a good sign and not the other kind. You're all right, though? How's your gang?"
no subject
None taken. I am good at hiding when I need to."People disappear. Blaze is used to that. They walk out into the wild and they drop off the radar. Maybe they like working alone, maybe they want time to think, maybe they're caught up pursuing their own quests. Maybe they've made a stumble or a wrong turn and found jaws waiting in the darkness. Eventually they'll come back, be it weeks or hours or years later. Sometimes they don't. It's cause to celebrate every time one runs into a friend, be it on a smoking battlefield or in a Tower bar.
If Jesse had been another Guardian, that would have been all there was to it and perhaps she wouldn't even have been concerned. But the Rotten were more vulnerable, and the fact that all of them seemed to have gone presented some unsettling possibilities. It wasn't patience that kept her from dwelling on them, just the inability to handle things she could neither verify nor change.
She chose not to expect the worst. But as the months passed, at some point the possibility had been taken out and placed on a shelf in the back of her mind. Just in case she needed it.
And now she doesn't need it. Neither is she going to dwell on the last time they spoke, or (yet) how much has happened in the interim. It's not like the changes are visible, anyway. She has slightly heavier armor, and instead of a brightly embroidered mark there's a heavy bundle of stained and moldered cloth at her hip. Everything else looks the same when she steps back and takes another look at him.
"I won't pretend you didn't have us worried. Angel said you hadn't called on her- had to hope that was a good sign and not the other kind. You're all right, though? How's your gang?"