Emotions recognized

Erinara

Jin had correctly identified a weakness in the defensive runes, followed by him putting everything into one final rush. In his all but reckless charge he even disarmed himself just to achieve that one goal. I had a countermeasure ready for that of course, in the form of a trap that was supposed to paralyze him as soon as he got close.
I had underestimated just how ridiculous his speed was, however. My rune hadn’t managed to charge itself in time. Jin was able to connect with his tackle.

Within the second I found myself being pinned to the ground, all coherent thoughts had instantly dissipated.
The sparring match already felt like a distant memory.

Jin had inadvertently thrown himself over me. That in of itself was bad enough to my already wildly scattered mental state, but dismissing the runes he was lying on made everything even worse. He suddenly began falling through the slight distance the runes occupied between us, bracing himself on the ground with his elbows next to my head and his knees next to my waist. The abrupt stop made his face lean ever so slightly forward, a mere breath away from touching mine, before he stabilized.
For the second time in two days, I was entirely unable to form a single coherent sentence to say.
The only difference between those interactions was the roaring ocean of surging emotions afflicting me in this instant, growing ever stronger.

Some of my thoughts aimed at launching him away with my innate magic in embarrassment, using the shadows to free me from this situation, but these thoughts did not stand their ground.
Others made me instinctively want to hide my horns behind my hands. They grew upward, rising too high to be in the way of his face in spite of how close he was, but I found them unsightly in this moment. Not that I had any functioning free will remaining to command my arms to do my bidding in the first place.
My usual style of looking for a logical approach to any situation had become a non-option in my brain.

Worse still, one particular thought slowly gained more and more prominence, until it was drowning out all other ones trying to make their presence known.
It demanded of me to pull Jin down to myself, closing the ever so slight gap between us.
I realized that I wanted to hold him close.
If I was just a little less calculating by nature, if I had been just a little more used to a normal life, far away from the outskirts due to being branded an omen, I probably would have.
Part of me even wished that his face had leaned forward just the tiniest bit more when he landed.
Every passing second felt like it slowed down more than the last, almost creeping time to a standstill, allowing more and more voices to join the choir of my mind, all aiming for a similar directive.

After what felt like eternity, even though it really hasn’t even been a minute, Jin rolled to the side, laying on his back on the ground next to me.
My mind took an ever so slight reprieve from the situation. It was short lived, however, as everything I felt came rushing back in the very next moment.

Unfortunately, I was still unable to speak. No matter how hard I tried, I found it impossible to anchor myself to reality. No amount of effort seemed to be enough to pierce through the veil that laid over my brain.

Behind my eyes I was at war with my mind, a new, uncanny awareness crushing every last thought within my head, one after the other.

What I felt for Jin wasn’t only a sense of respect, kinship, or even friendship. At least, those turned out to be far from the main things I felt for him.

Part of me had probably figured it out much earlier.
It seemed I myself took longer to realize this than the dark depths of my mind. What I felt was much more greedy in nature.

I felt a deep desire to be with him.

An emotion I never expected to acquire in the first place.

I wanted to love him.

With that realization came a strong distaste for my situation. Or to be more precise, the bitter feeling was aimed at Jin’s situation.
No matter how open and honest of a person he was, or maybe particularly because of those traits, wanting to be with him as an omen surely would be all but impossible.
I was more than used to only living for myself, with one particular goal: striving to get ever more powerful. That was, until almost two years ago, when I had crossed paths with Ebiron and become his protégé.
Before that, all I ever knew were the sensations of being shunned, despised, unseen and feared. In the grand scheme of my twenty-three years of life, the two years living in the citadel had been a somewhat recent development. I had managed to get used to many new things, even experiencing privileges coming with my newfound title of disciple of the executive of change, but some had yet eluded me.
Spearheading those was the idea of ever finding interest in someone like I had with Jin.
A concept of that magnitude had been nothing but a figment of my imagination.

Somewhere in the hidden crevices of my mind, a sense of amusement appeared.
I, a descendant of the land of warlocks, an omen, a so-called potential cursed calamity, had not only actually found someone who I wanted to be close with, to learn more of, but the person to have struck my fancy for that matter was none other than a newly trained warrior of the kingdom of crests.

Jin’s breathing next to me was shallow and thin. He was clearly fighting an unseen inner turmoil all of his own.
I wanted to look at him, but decided against it.
If my eyes met him now, I was sure I wouldn’t be able to look away, or to try to argue with my mind any longer.
My mind couldn’t help but wander to the situation just moments ago. His usually steadfast gaze, filled with honor and chivalry, had been all but meek as he held himself above me. It wasn’t born of weakness, but something else entirely.

The tiny fragments of logic that found their way back into my thought process claimed that the origin of the soft but captivating look in his eyes was created of similar emotions as the ones I was working through currently.

Certainly, if it was Jin, I felt like our odd combination might just work. And yet, I instinctively shied away from asking about it, not that I had regained control of my vocal cords yet. The embarrassment pulsing red-hot through my face had not cooled down even a little this entire time.
If anything, it felt like it was intensifying the more I thought about him, quite literally lying on the ground right beside me.

Feelings of uncertainty and desire had been intertwining with each other.
I found myself arguing back and forth between the potential outcomes of trying to take action, when the time for that came.

‘What if I misjudged his reactions?’
No, logically speaking they were too consistent and similar to mine. Even right now, we were all but mirroring each other. He must feel similar.

‘But what if I brought misfortune on him, what with me being an omen?’
For my whole life, in my entire time scraping through the outskirts fending for myself, having to fear for my life even, I had never been as terrified of my situation of being an omen as right this instant.
Another train of thought appeared to combat it thankfully:
‘I have never accepted what fate appeared to force me into. And Jin didn’t see me as an omen in the first place.’

Somehow, a slight warmth radiated through my usually frigid body.
The warmth disappeared as quickly as it had emerged, leaving me puzzled at yet another occurrence.