Comfort Food (-open-)

[Emilian Sota]

Emilian creased his eyebrows and pulled a chair close to her. He sat down in it and wiped the tears from her cheeks, "What happened?" he asked, taking her hand in his. Apparently whatever Ryan had said to her wasn't enough to make her distrust him.

[Adara Snow]

Adara's body tensed at the soft feel of Emilian's fingers wiping away her tears, and it only added to her confusion. He was so kind and thoughtful, how could she be anything less than comforted? She breathed deeply a moment, lowering wet, ink-black lashes against her pale cheeks before answering. "He said those things again," she confessed. She looked up at Emilian, her eyes pleading. "I told him, I don't understand, but he would not listen."

[Emilian Sota]

Emilian stared at her eyelashes, the contrast was amazing, and when she looked up he was jerked out of his mind, where he had been imagining things he had promised not to do. He brushed back her hair, "Don't listen to him, he's had a vendetta against me since I arrived here." It was a battle just to keep his eyes from focusing on her lips, her cheeks, anything other than her eyes, which was precisely where he should have been looking.

[Adara Snow]

Adara nodded, comforted by his brief reassurance. She worried her lip between her teeth a moment, her gaze trained on his eyes, before asking a softly spoken question. "Are we friends, Emilian?" So very much hinged on his answer. She already trusted him, liked him, but she would not burden him with guiding her unless he would accept her trust and friendship in return.

[Emilian Sota]

Emilian worked to glaze his true, lusty emotions from his eyes before forcing them up to meet hers. "I'd be honored," he said, putting on a reassuring smile.

[Adara Snow]

Adara's lips spread into a smile of pure joy, and her dark eyes gleamed with amber-colored flecks. "I am so glad!" she exclaimed, her soft voice not rising above library levels even in her excitement. She reached for Emilian's hands, surprised when she touched him that his skin was so cool, and that hers felt suddenly hot. Her smile faded slightly, but did not die, only shifting to something more subtle as she glanced away, blushing yet again.

[Emilian Sota]

Emilian smiled, and when she turned away he reached out and brought her face in his direction, leaning forward slightly. His remaining hand clutched at hers. Five days... With the thought he forced his hand down from her face and looked at the book she had. "So what were you in here for?" he asked, searching for something to bring his mind away from the slight burning beginning to grow inside him.

[Adara Snow]

Adara felt suddenly breathless, though she did not know why. Something about the look in his eyes when he had brought her to look at him. She felt almost lost when he let her go, though she also felt an unexplainable relief that the tension had faded, if only a bit.

She glanced down at the book on the floor, pausing a moment before she bent to retrieve it. She sat again, looking apologetically at the book, sorry that it had been dropped and forgotten. "I was resting," she said to Emilian, her fingers tracing the faded design on the book's cover. "Books are my comfort food." She smiled at her own analogy and looked up at Emilian, quite pleased with herself. "What about you, Emilian? What comforts you?" She tilted her head patiently, genuinely interested.

[Emilian Sota]

Emilian grinned, "Company," he said. It was as close to the truth as he was willing to go, unless she directly asked the right questions, but he had the impression from her that she wouldn't know the particular ones to ask. His attempt to ignore the feeling failed with that question, she had just made him think of it more intently.

[Adara Snow]

Adara's smile widened to see Emilian grinning. "I do love company," she said, her hands stilling against the book to clasp one another lightly. "Though I have always preferred smaller, more intimate conversations. I tend to get lost in groups." She had been lost much of the time since she came to Hogwarts, it seemed. "And you, Emilian? Do you prefer groups?" She could easily see him leading a large discussion.

[Emilian Sota]

Emilian had to bite his tongue for just a moment and stared down at his hands. Do you prefer groups? What a question. He took a couple of moments to force the words yearning to come out back down before looking back up at her. "It doesn't really matter to me, one on one or groups, though too large a group gets too crowded for me."

[Adara Snow]

Adara nodded in understanding. "I was not often...allowed in company," Adara said. "All this is still new to me." Her voice was soft, almost a confession as she looked down at her hands again. "It frightens me sometimes. Is that wrong?"

[Emilian Sota]

"How could it be wrong?" It seemed as though this girl was much more sheltered than he had originally thought. Emilian smiled at her, thinking that he wanted her company all the sooner because of it. His eyes gleamed with the thoughts running rampant through his mind.

[Adara Snow]

Adara looked up then, her gaze catching on the strange look in Emilian's eyes. They were enough to pull one in, and yet she found herself leaning ever so slightly away from him, her fingers curling over the edge of the book in her lap. "You are often in thought," she observed, so quietly that the words were little more than a whisper. She wanted to ask what thoughts brought such a look, but that would be rude, unthinkable. His private thoughts were his alone.

[Emilian Sota]

Emilian blinked a few times, putting a glaze over them, not letting his thoughts show. "Just recently. I'm usually not a thinker, just the last few days..." he trailed off, he had been thinking a lot more, whereas normally he would have been doing. Why on earth had he even agreed to the deal?