blindedstarlight:

She is… | Gladio x Fem!Reader (SFW)

She’s delicate, easily offended in most circumstances, though he knows it’s a coping mechanism against a world that has wronged her one time too many. She snaps back at the slightest of criticism, and runs when things get too hard to face head on. He wants to tell her to be open minded and tolerant, but he also accepts that she will find her way on her own— it is only a matter of time and personal first hand experience.

He finds it hard to let her hurt by herself, but he knows he can’t make every blow to her pride as soft as feather kisses. She will need to find her own way, and deal with the pain in her own right. It hurts him to see her hurt, but he has no choice— and he comes to realise that she does not neither.

She worries for him, and he knows it, but he has a job to do. So he bites his tongue and doesn’t answer her questions. Is it dangerous? Is he hurt? Will he be back soon?

The answers to these questions… he does not know. So he says nothing, and inevitably, she cries for him.

He doesn’t like it when she cries, but he cannot help it. She will not leave him to fulfil his duty guilt free either, and he has never been more grateful for her stubborn streak. He doesn’t want to be alone. He wants to be selfish, and he wants to see her cry… because, then of course, that means she cares a great deal— and he wants someone to care more than he does.

She does and this makes him weak at the knees and strong in the heart.

He finds that the world knows him as a shield, and he knows himself as the King’s Shield… but she is his shield.

She is his light.

She is his hope and endurance. His courage and his fear. She is all, and nothing— all at once.

He finds himself frustrated. She’s so delicate. She’s on the verge of breaking.

Yet he’s never seen a shield so strong.

He wants to learn from her.

She is… you.