Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Ohhhh," she breathed, and resisted putting her hand up to her muzzle. It was a mostly human affectation, anyway, and she almost always misgauged the distance, and put her hand too close to her chin. Now it was suppressed mostly for the sake of the man in front of her.

"Are you hurt?"

"What happened? Are you alright?"

She was silent. There was no goading to be had here- no curiosity or pressure. There was just silence, and a fear of the obvious- the end of his sentence- coupled with the positioning of that bandage. The obvious and unsaid was painful.

She still didn't speak- but her actions were not silent. Emelyn shuffled back onto her knees and, coming forward, wrapped her arms around him, her hand reaching up behind him to cradle his head. He would be unable to return the hug, she knew, and she also realized that he might feel discomfort with the contact. But there was nothing else she could do.

"I'm so sorry, Lucas." She said softly, not wanting her voice to jar in his ear- which she imagined was more sensitive than it had ever been before. It was a horrid, cruel thing, to take someone's eye- and she didn't know quite who 'they' were, except to lump in the whole of Feral Labs, a devilish symbol with a redheaded madman looming up above it with a sneering face. It had been over a year since she'd seen the man and even then it had been on relatively friendly terms- but it took no reminder of those cold eyes or the strange, ugly dream to sour Emelyn's heart against this establishment. Lucas was right. So much had already been taken from them- what left was subject to being torn away? He was limp in her arms, and she felt a disquieting discomfort at the pain that was ricocheting between them.

She released him, then, gently easing him to arm's length and then tentatively breaking the physical connection. There was a lot to be said for the tumultuous relationship of care and friendship that existed between them- but even so, Emelyn didn't know how to help him. One of her own personal terrors was the idea of losing something- mostly, a limb- the idea of amputation was terrible and unfathomable to her. She'd never even thought to extend that fear to something like an eye, but now that her mind had connected them, it was equally terrifying.

"Well the first thing is to... not let them win. They can take a... a lot of things away from us. But if we disintegrate, then they've taken everything." It was a dry, soft whisper that cracked in the back of her throat.

She didn't laugh- instead, it was a huff of a sound somewhere between amusement and horror- a deep, throaty thing that was altogether unfeminine and ugly. Her fingers, though, were still gentle where they rested on the carpet near him, and her eyes were sympathetic.

"We're not winning anything. We're just... holding on. Making them 'lose', just like us."