andhiswife | (Reply)

She almost rolls her eyes in an entirely self-deprecating sort of way -- because of course a unicorn would be referring to things like time and mortality and not the smaller mundanities with which she'd preoccupied herself -- but the thought of being able to feel yourself dying is so horrifying that she can neither blame herself for failing to guess at it nor feel anything but terrible that the truth is so ghastly.

"I'm so sorry," she says, closing the little distance between them so she can wrap an arm around Amalthea's shoulders. She's never been good at keeping her hands to herself when someone else is upset, always feeling compelled to reach out, to ground them (though being grounded in a mortal human body might be the last thing she needs). "That sounds awful."

After a beat, she adds, "Certainly worse than being bored," which now feels like a trivial complaint. That Amalthea still understands it almost makes it all worse; if she didn't comprehend it, at least it wouldn't be so obviously inconsequential by comparison. Greta presses her lips together, feeling small and ridiculous (so much so that she can't even manage to get distracted by the thought of living in a castle, which would normally prompt a flurry of questions).