Not Yet Lost

Pith

"I-I can't ever know why Jyra-tul took 'em away n' not you, Con. I don't.. think I'd even be able to understand the d-dragons in their ways, how they think n' why- If this is w-what we deserve or if this i-is what we gotta go through to be happy."

Pith's eyes eventually rested on the crude script in the book, and her eyes strained themselves a little looking at it.

"I know t-that time'll come, if we don't give up j-jus' yet. Someday. M-maybe is in the spring, o-or.. another winter, but.."

Eventually she sits at the edge of the bed next to him, closing the book and placing it on the lap of the agouti hare.

"I-Is true, though. We can't take it back, especially if.. this all is because we deserve it. J-jus' pick ourselves up, see where w-we.. failed, move on."

Her eyes were watering at this point.

"One.. day, we'll.. b-be happy, by reachin' t-the conclusion of that, I hope."

Constantine

Constantine exhales another sigh. "I haven't given up. As much as I want to, sometimes. I know I'm here for some reason. I don't think it's any sort of atonement. I don't think a critter like me gets that chance." He clutches the book in his hand. "But I got something to keep fighting for still, I guess. And I made a promise that... I'll see this done, at any cost. And I need you to understand that, too."

He bumps his shoulder against hers, and then stands up to put the book on a little corner table in his bedroom. He bends down to pick up the old chest-piece, then traces a finger along the gaping crack, and the spider-like tendrils of rusty-red stains that follow the contours of the woodgrain, from where they're concentrated in mass near the ground-zero of the wound.

He hands it over to Pith, momentarily, and then picks up the padded coat, of sorts. As before, fingers trace the tears and the and the crusted and dusty stains, before he puts it on. Then, he loosely wraps some of the cloth around his legs -- the deeper stained one on the side of the major tear. He reaches back for the chest plate so that he might put it on over top. Then, the sashes, and finally the old, dented helmet. In a way, he looked the part of a quick facsimile of his old, soldiering self. There's still some cloth and such strewn on the floor, indicating the look likely wasn't complete.

"Not every critter has the stomach for the things I've had and will have to do. Suppose maybe that's why I'm still here."