m'uru

Seraph gripped his head, threatening to rip out his hair as tears poured from his eyes. “I am a coward, remember? I ate that plum because I wanted to escape the pain I now know I deserved. But I wish that plum really had killed me. I wish I had died that day. It would have been better than a life with no hope of redemption. Every morning, I open my eyes and remember waking up after the fight. Realizing you’re alive after trying to end it all, I never knew something could be so painful. Every breath hurt, every beat of my heart was agony, every thought in my mind felt like hot lead, and it all comes again fresh every morning. All I’ve wanted to do since then is… finish what I started.”“I know how you feel.”

“It's not that,” I said, trying to figure out the words to explain, when I only partly understood how I was feeling about it myself. “I know he'd be okay with it... and we might end up going there, eventually. But once he knows, there's no taking that back. I... I just need more time to think about it, first, before we go there. Right now, he's just my Grandpa, nothing else, and I'm just his innocent little baby girl... I'm not sure I'm ready to give that up, not yet.”

“And I know you’re… closer with him than just his assistant.”Shannon got Sophia’s meaning and blushed with her ears twitching. “Well, that is true. I swore myself to Lord Noah and Lady Valia, body, mind, and soul. That includes… intimate service, but they never forced me into anything I didn’t want to do. It was I who first offered.”