[ It is a precious thing, isn't it? So small and lovely and smoothly wrought, small enough to sit in the palm of her hand, the bottom of it curved just so as if moulded specifically for the hollow bowl of her fingers. She almost misses it the first time she leaves her room, her skirts swishing about her feet, the bell of her dress full. But Lady whimpers and snuffles along, the smell of Magneto still a sharp, wary thing in her nose and Alayne pauses and turns only to find the gift waiting for her, her bow low and careful as she stoops to retrieve it.
The metal is cool and the handwriting unfamiliar and the message left to her is writ in a language she does no recognize nor understand. Still, the sender is clear, her attention catching and then pausing on the single line drawn through the name Magneto. (A man with two names, Alayne thinks, her breath catching. We are more alike than perhaps you know, Erik.) She traces that strike with the tip of her finger, imagining it to be a wound dealt by the edge of a blade, and then sounds out the name given in its place. ]
Erik Lehnsherr, [ Alayne whispers and smiles to herself. (She cannot tell which gift is more precious to her.) ] Erik Lehnsherr.
[ When she looks him in the hour that follows, it is not until she searches the library that she finds him. Direwolf padding obediently behind her, the suggestion of a growl in her through quickly hushed and chastised to silence; the token is still cradled in her hands when she happens across him, the card tucked away into the folds of her dress, scurried to a secret place where she knows the gift of his name remains safe. Alayne bows — deep and low and sincere — when she greets him, that secret smile still playing across her features. ]
Erik Lehnsherr, [ she says softly, her chin dipped low but her large blue eyes lifted to look at him always. ] Humbly, I greet you.
action;
The metal is cool and the handwriting unfamiliar and the message left to her is writ in a language she does no recognize nor understand. Still, the sender is clear, her attention catching and then pausing on the single line drawn through the name Magneto. (A man with two names, Alayne thinks, her breath catching. We are more alike than perhaps you know, Erik.) She traces that strike with the tip of her finger, imagining it to be a wound dealt by the edge of a blade, and then sounds out the name given in its place. ]
Erik Lehnsherr, [ Alayne whispers and smiles to herself. (She cannot tell which gift is more precious to her.) ] Erik Lehnsherr.
[ When she looks him in the hour that follows, it is not until she searches the library that she finds him. Direwolf padding obediently behind her, the suggestion of a growl in her through quickly hushed and chastised to silence; the token is still cradled in her hands when she happens across him, the card tucked away into the folds of her dress, scurried to a secret place where she knows the gift of his name remains safe. Alayne bows — deep and low and sincere — when she greets him, that secret smile still playing across her features. ]
Erik Lehnsherr, [ she says softly, her chin dipped low but her large blue eyes lifted to look at him always. ] Humbly, I greet you.