still rattled from the emotions thundering about in his head.

"While you are quite warm, I think going inside might be the more proper course of action, lest one of us get a cold." He loosened his arms around her, then rolled off to the left, standing from his knees to his full height and stretching out his arms.

He offered her his hand to help her stand up,

Do you suppose one could purchase a resurrection?

Ah, the highest denomination of coin. It goes copper, silver, gold, platinum. 5000 platinum is extreme wealth.

moved his hand from her abdomen to wipe the tears away, careful not to whack her with his arm when he moved. He muttered a "thank you" and then stared into space, his mind—for once in his life—totally blank.
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He wept for the pain he'd felt at her loss, he wept for the person he'd been, so brash and so utterly confident and so full of hubris that nothing could ever go wrong, until it did. Until that fateful moment when everything went wrong.

When he stopped crying, it was rather abrupt, and he
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Or was it different for some humanoids. Suddenly he wasn't sure.

He decided to wrap his arms around her once she had settled down and then nestle his head into her neck, placing one arm on her lower ribs and using his other arm as a pillow.

And he wept. He wept for the friend he'd lost.
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He considered several things before he laid down, one of which was her antlers. He didn't want to be skewered. It felt presumptive to simply lay his head directly on her boob, that felt rather improper after their heart to heart, even if that was where her heart was... it was, wasn't it.
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he believed it, and he wasn't sure if he could acknowledge it at the moment. It was comforting, at some level, that she thought of him like that - and he'd consider that more at a later time, perhaps a few minutes from now, or a few days.

"Will you hold me while I cry?" he asked, feeling that familiar lump in his throat that told him he needed, his soul ached, to weep. To let himself grieve for a friend he lost and may never reclaim.

It was a simple question. He brushed off Tomomi's list of his perceived virtues. He wasn't sure if

Those words hurt to utter out loud. It hurt to admit to her that he thought so little of himself, and that he thought she deserved someone far better than he was. It hurt to admit that he didn't measure up.

But that was life as Mattias Bread. Not measuring up.

Never measuring up.

But I cannot love someone and tell them truthfully that I would not trade my life to bring her back in an instant. At any point. At least," he finally took his glasses off to press his teary eyes into his sleeve, "at least as I am now. I am... a wretch. At best. You deserve more than me."

I deserve it, and I deserve every pain I find, because I killed one of the few great, powerful lights in my existence."

He felt himself trembling. His voice shaking. He did not reach for his glasses. He let the hot tears burn his eyes; more pain that he felt he deserved.

"I love you. I think I do.

I have always regarded myself as second best to her. To what she could do, to what she could succeed at." He chuckled, a mirthless, hollow chuckle that was self-effacing at best.

"Your words are so sharp, they prick me like thorns, and I embrace that pain because I feel on some level I deserve it.

"I am second-best."

The words tumbled out, and then more followed, and something in his worldview finally snapped together, something he always knew subconsciously but could never quite put to words.

"Colette was not my lover, but she was my better half. The friend of mine that died from my magic?

And he is, in turn, utterly baffled by her words. He looked at her sharply and then blinked, then raised his left hand and adjusted his glasses.

"...elaborate. I have no idea what you mean. If you would, of course." He cleared his throat.

"It's rather nonsensical." Mattias took the cloak and draped it over his front, like a blanket. "I came to the realization that I flirt with others to get a rise out of you. To see if you care who I flirt with."

hands in his lap and his gaze fixated on the shimmering waves of the lake.

He wandered over to her and sat down beside her, the front of his nose already growing red, as well as the tips of his ears. Although he offered no complaint about the cold.

"Is there anything you want to talk about, or would you prefer we linger in companionable silence?" he asked softly, his