He hooks his pinky into hers, and the emotions that wash over her are so affecting as to be almost silly. It’s so little a thing, objectively, just the barest of intimacies, to raise a lump in her throat, and so familiar. There’s that familiarity — like muscle memory but for emotion: connection, almost a lightness, the instinct to smile — but with no expected flood of connected memories. And over the top of it a shattering, unsteadying loss — a sense of having not ever expected that little gesture again.
She almost wants to burst into tears like a child, but it’s so absurd, and she swallows against it; she does curl her own pinky, squeezing back, and looks back up at him to give him a steadying, if slightly apologetic, smile.
(The only thing Camilla can think all that grief must come from is the skull. She wants, badly, to tell him, but how do you tell someone you’ve just reunited with — and in some ways, just met — that they might be dead? No: they are honest with each other, she’s sure of that, but she has to be pragmatic. She would barely be able to tell him anything, anyway. And what does it matter? He’s not dead here. However uncertain she was of seeing him again, they have each other now, and also, they have to figure out this place.)
Camilla frowns as she listens, taking it in with a crease between her brows and a slow rock from her heels to the balls of her feet, and presses her lips together. She starts to reply, a million questions on the tip of her tongue, but he asks if she can walk and she nods. It’s a quick sharp movement; she lifts an eyebrow in faint judgement at his once over. “Yes, of course.”
As a small concession to his concern — she is exhausted, and her muscles are complaining, whether or not she wants him to know that — she adds, “It’ll be safer to walk a little to be out of the sun.” She pauses. “And I …” Cam exhales, forcing herself past feeling mad. “I don’t think town was just here until you saw me. I’d been walking in this direction for — hours, I think — and…the sun hadn’t even moved. I’d love to be done with dunes for a while.”
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She almost wants to burst into tears like a child, but it’s so absurd, and she swallows against it; she does curl her own pinky, squeezing back, and looks back up at him to give him a steadying, if slightly apologetic, smile.
(The only thing Camilla can think all that grief must come from is the skull. She wants, badly, to tell him, but how do you tell someone you’ve just reunited with — and in some ways, just met — that they might be dead? No: they are honest with each other, she’s sure of that, but she has to be pragmatic. She would barely be able to tell him anything, anyway. And what does it matter? He’s not dead here. However uncertain she was of seeing him again, they have each other now, and also, they have to figure out this place.)
Camilla frowns as she listens, taking it in with a crease between her brows and a slow rock from her heels to the balls of her feet, and presses her lips together. She starts to reply, a million questions on the tip of her tongue, but he asks if she can walk and she nods. It’s a quick sharp movement; she lifts an eyebrow in faint judgement at his once over. “Yes, of course.”
As a small concession to his concern — she is exhausted, and her muscles are complaining, whether or not she wants him to know that — she adds, “It’ll be safer to walk a little to be out of the sun.” She pauses. “And I …” Cam exhales, forcing herself past feeling mad. “I don’t think town was just here until you saw me. I’d been walking in this direction for — hours, I think — and…the sun hadn’t even moved. I’d love to be done with dunes for a while.”