The challenge word is Soft and it's Karen's birthday so this is for you, hunny.
I observe, drawn irrevocably to the soft, velvet green of his gaze and even in momentary repose I see the enormity of all he has endured and has yet to survive. He no longer tries to hide it from me, to protect me from it.
We both know we are too near the end for that.
There is a wild vivacity; an innate power in his eyes, energy that denies the simple humanity he craves marking him as something more.
He hates that but knows he will need his finally-embraced otherworldliness in what is to come.
" Abbas, servo vestry filius!"
The last phrase roughly translates as 'Father, protect your son'. Thank you for reading.