Quote Originally Posted by Raz_Fox View Post
The Pilgrim offers Lily a hand; it is unlikely that she will accept the implicit offer to clamber onto his back, to use him as a beast of burden, but it is offered anyway. (There’s always hesitation at first; he’s used to simply giving orders, or hauling new meat up on his shoulders so he can carry them up a knife-sharp crevasse. But this is not there and Lily was not cast down by alien stars to suffer, and he does not have the right to seize her up. Not unless he needs to.)

If she accepts- well, we have seen this already, on screen. Swift, long-legged flight hurtling down the scrubland, all swirling smoke passing down the road against the wind, smelling like strange incense and charred flesh. They will be there soon.

If Lily declines, or ignores the offer entirely, as that is easiest, that means there is no need to confront such a fraught relationship as exists between the two- well, the Pilgrim can slow down to accommodate her little legs. He will move like an elk, all long strides and sudden stillness, every movement deliberate, his senses pricked to listen for the Hunt. There will be little conversation; his thought is cast outwards, paying attention to the world around him (so drab, so soft in comparison to the fires of purgatory).
Lily took his hand without hesitation, in fact she was almost moving to reach for it before it was offered. She held his hand with one hand and clasped his arm with her second. Her head bent, she let out a breath and her shoulders eased. She hadn't realised how much she'd needed someone to hold on to. Her heart had been beating so fast, and still did, ever since she left the King, that she felt she could be knocked over by a feather. Isaac... well, Isaac felt safe, for the moment, and so she borrowed of his strength without asking.

It truth she hadn't noticed that the intention was for her to climb up on his back. The thought didn't even enter her mind, despite having seen him carry others that way. Instead she ended up walking out the garbage gate with him like they were a Victorian couple leaving the ball.

But it didn't take long before she became keenly aware of their slow progress, and Isaac's ability to move so much faster than her. She was holding him back. So she asked him to pick her up so that he could set the pace. Disappearing in smoke, albeit one so very different from her own, was familiar and comfortable. To her mind this was her little realm of half-existence and her misty weight grew fractionally heavier at finally releasing the last of the stone-heavy courage she'd been carrying against her will. She smelled smoke and charred matter and its unpleasantness didn't even register. It was in these dark mists that she whispered her confession, as if saying it here, now, like this, was not quite releasing it fully in to the real world, not fully having to face it, just releasing it in to the space between being and not-being.

She spoke of what she'd done, of the contract she had woven with the Mad King Summer, of Iron holding her to her promise, of the King's missing child and his raging paranoia, of how much the King terrified her and how she felt he was doomed to self destruction and set to take everyone down with him. She spoke of finding this traitor and how she only had three days and had no idea how to fulfil her promise or what would happen when she didn't. Like water, the words flowed easily once released. She hadn't thought as far as to what his reaction might be. Perhaps he would pretend not to have heard her. Perhaps he'd be angry, would she be able to weather that? Would he be dangerous? Could she trust him? Right now, in this comforting smoke of half-existence, she thought so.