( His... prize. He hears the words but misunderstands them, gaze soft when it lands on the petals in his clutching hand, indifferent to the shivers that rattle him. Cold courses through him like summer storm's lightning.

He does not move to offer them to Wrathion. Withholds himself, paralysed by drippings of hesitation. )

I do not know... whether to relinquish what the dead do not wish gifted.

( These flowers, strangely lifeless in his stiff hand, joints stiff and steeled around them. He chokes them like he might a throat. If they are not present, if they perish —

There is no choice to fathom, to wonder of. What is it that the woman fears, that she denies, that she wishes undone? Is it Haiva's fate? Will the flowers give him death or ruin? Are they as likely to sabotage him as to bring him health?

...or is it that she does not wish him healed? )