Time to Breathe

[Tenzin]

Jacinda rose to the kitchen and Tenzin only watched and waited. She meant what said about there being no pressure. As the coffee dripped and filled the air with its scent, she stretched her legs beneath the table and relaxed, perfectly prepared to let the subject drop. But upon returning with the mugs, Jacinda began to talk. Tenzin leaned forward, elbows on the table, coffee steaming beside her.

Twelve. By that age Tenzin had been at the monastery for most of her life, only just beginning her more serious training. Childhood in Alchi probably meant a different thing than the norm, but it was not unkind. She'd never really reflected on why her birth parents gave her up. Never had a reason to lament it; in fact, logically, it had probably saved her life. Normal people didn't take kindly to girls that suddenly sprouted teeth and claws, who forgot how to speak and to walk like a human. And most rākṣasa hatyārā would no sooner blink than end such a threat.

Her hackles shivered at the story. There were times she wished for Silver's guidance in the waking world; the wolves had such an effortless understanding of things humans made far too complicated. They smelled the evil despite what mask it may wear. But they didn't always understand the affairs of men.

She didn't like what she was hearing. She didn't like that when Jacinda admitted she had been as much wife as daughter, she did so with the nonchalance of declaring the sky blue. She didn't like the way her mind jumped from the heartbreak in Jacinda's voice to the subtext of the things she did not say. Tenzin objected to the spirit-touched being called gods, and she objected to the title bestowed on an Athari just as vehemently. Moreso, perhaps. It was wrong and it buried a growl in her throat, quickly swallowed down before it betrayed her. It was just her imagination, but in her head the wolves prowled agitated and protective. Snapping at an unseen threat. Hackles sharp. Ears low.

"No one owns soul. Only you."
It came out a little too fierce, a hint of gravel to her voice suggesting just how much she felt it. Her hearing was better than most, another gift from the wolves, and when the whispers fell strained by emotion, Tenzin heard. What Jacinda had had was not pack. It was not love. It was not loyalty. But she was not sure the woman was ready to hear it; if she might snap Tenzin's fingers off for going near something so sensitive, for forcing her to face it. Her face was pressed tight with the effort to control the emotion, tears leaking anyway, years of grief at the crux of a single point. And Tenzin did not know what to do, or to say. She only had her instincts.

The quest of Jacinda's hand was met with affection. She was sure she could take things further now, if she chose to. The brief touch of fingertips was like a drowning soul clutching for the shoreline, and sometimes there was comfort to be had in the purely physical. In the short term perhaps it would sooth away some of those hurts, but it was like throwing a blanket over a nest of rougarou and hoping the problem went away. Tenzin's instincts said it was the wrong way to do it, to let her simply pour herself into someone else at so vulnerable a moment. Though it made her smile all the same, the tentative seeking of that connection.

Instead she took Jacinda's hand and gently turned it over. Her finger traced the outline of the samsara with the pad of her thumb. "Belonging. Wanted. Connection. Yours. Worthy. Warrior. Good. Not find it in other, find it in self."
Then she laughed. "Lamas chuckle to hear that now. Not always good student."
She wrinkled her nose, grinning. Of course, she understood that notion of not belonging. If she blinked the contacts from her eyes, would Jacinda even hesitate before acting? But she found her connections in other ways. Never questioned her right to life. "And him? Throw him away. Not worthy. Taken too much already."
Her jaw set, the smile fading. Because she had suspicions she didn't want to voice, but the disgust was too strong to bury completely.

Her gaze fell to her own wrists. The leather throngs and charms that wrapped them, collected from varied travels, and her hands slipped free to liberate one in particular. She rolled the charm over in her palm, thinking, her heart beating with the word sister, and then she moved to knot it about Jacinda's wrist. "Collect charms. Silly superstitions, but feel good anyway."
There were glass beads strung along the leather, punctuated with intricate knot-work. The charm itself was a curved tooth rooted in dented gold. It belonged to Silver. The only physical reminder she had of her pack so many miles away, and something she had found great comfort from in the years after his passing to the dream. To her this meant belonging. To her this was connection.

Her attention focused on knotting the leather. "Where is he now?"