[ Emilia exhales in what is meant to be a wry and short laugh — this is hardly the first time Lan Wangji has posed this question, likely — but it comes out half-sobbed in a way that startles her, heart still pounding too fast. Hands slightly shaky at the reins.
She truly thought she would be too late. Thought the dragon would crash into the building and devastate many other lives. Thought the winds were right to whisper in her ear after all, that she is little more than a forest fire made to scald, not save.
A slight shudder in her frame, visible from where he sits behind, is mostly what betrays her.
Quick though she is to wipe her tears, she says hoarsely, ]
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She truly thought she would be too late. Thought the dragon would crash into the building and devastate many other lives. Thought the winds were right to whisper in her ear after all, that she is little more than a forest fire made to scald, not save.
A slight shudder in her frame, visible from where he sits behind, is mostly what betrays her.
Quick though she is to wipe her tears, she says hoarsely, ]
No. Not dead.
[ They're still here. ]