#moreover who's making sure other hunters (ie her dad) don't kill those who are jsut trying to exist?? who's looking out for them if not her

[miidnighters]

Ah yes - the hard part, now, of actually telling the story, now that she's offered it.

"It's not a happy event," She warns, aiming for another smile (though it doesn't meet her eyes), and moving her other hand like she might reach for him (might feel settled by the contact) but aborting the motion. Still, there's no hesitation as she seems to gather herself to tell him.

"It was a few months shy of my eighteenth birthday. My mother and I were on the trail of a wolf that had gone feral - only it turned out to be a shape-changer, that we were woefully underprepared for. He caught me across the ribs, and while I was down - because she was worried about me - he caught my mother." There's a slight pause, here - a light hitch, but Hartley swallows it down to press on. "I managed to take him down, by the skin of my teeth,-" pouring blood the while, muscles and tendons in her side screaming. "but there was no saving her. My father was never quite the same. And I was not afforded the privilege of going to the doctor associated with the order since I'd let my mother die." A mocking tone, there - time has truly taught her what a cruel man she'd been raised by. "So the scar remains. Uglier, now, twisted by time."

(is that bravery? Is that accomplishment?)

This story is punctuated with a shrug, as if she can make out that she hasn't just laid her softest underbelly out between them, as if she's not petrified of what he'll think of all the parts of herself she's just revealed.

And then, of course, the truths she must struggle through are not over.

"Gale, darling, are you really asking what are we, like we're a pair of lovesick teenagers?" Deflection, maybe, just for a moment, because she needs to build that steel back up, didn't she? Still, the question has been asked and Hartley won't leave him languishing without response.

Another swipe of thumb over his chest - almost casual enough to play at being an idle movement. "I hold you in very high regard as well." Exactly what shape that takes yet, she's not sure. "I would even go so far as to say you're dear to me. I would have you as a constant in my life, for as long as you're willing to stay, which is not something I - well." She breaks off, another not-quite-all-there smile. "A friend, first and foremost."

Being but a moment of mindless ecstasy? Evidently, they are far too similar.

And it's funny, isn't it, as Gale looks to her now in the gentling light. None would truly believe it, not with his penchant for oxfords and her __ for life, but as a scholar and a wizard of considerable repute, it is never one's cover that one must judge. She bears smiles and praises. She boasts honey and silk. And it's easier to hide when one can dazzle with one's looks, but how many such fissures does her skin wear now? Thousands. About his chest, the memory of that glass prickles all too real.

Still, her scars speak of bravery. Her accomplishments. Her grit. (Gale can hardly say the same, a man whose great love he can never quite tame.)

With his throat warm with whiskey, his leather chair groans. (And he couldn't. He unlike Hartley is all a fool.)

"Of course," he broaches, "but be it dog bite or not, you've yet to offer me the truth. Those men were eager, certainly, to offer you their lead and to all but guide them. Unfortunately, I've taken a meaningful habit of walking myself, and I can't say I'm willing to be led down segues." No. "I haven't the heart for distractions." But rather truth and vulnerability. 

Her touch prickles at his skin, a thousand flurrying asks surging sharp in the dark. She's a labyrinthed creature, a maze and puzzle to the bright of her eyes. Gale can never be sure that he'll understand get her, but there: she is offering a moment to dare but a step. He takes it. Trying for calm, he manages some semblance of steady. "So, while I am relieved to hear that — truly, I am — that leaves the matter as to what I am to you unaddressed entirely. To be perfectly honest, it's not exactly a mystery I find myself enjoying. It leaves a wizard's imagination to fill in the blanks as it were, and he's likely to fill them in with his own...generous perceptions."

"It's a dangerous option to offer me. You must know that I regard you highly." And if he views him as a plaything? Heavens. No, he has suffered that enough.