"Lady Verona… what are you doing here?"
Elric said her name first, softly, almost like he wasn't sure if he should break the silence around him.
"You weren't back for so long," she said, her voice a little smaller than she intended. "I thought something… I just got worried, so I went looking for you."
He nodded and Verona took that as permission, or maybe she just wanted to be close enough to understand what was going on in his head, so she lowered herself to the grass beside him. Elric reacted too quickly, his hand shifted as if to stop her.
"Wait, don't…" he said, but she was already down there beside him.
"It's alright," she replied. "It's not too dirty."
He looked at her like someone who wasn't sure whether to scold her or thank her. In the end, he did neither. They just sat, the two of them, under a sky stretched thin with cold stars. The breeze was the only thing bold enough to make noise.
