[color=0054a6]“Eilis, all my life I have had a simple reason to live.  I felt that I needed a reason to be alive.  I felt that by being useful my life was not a waste.  However, I did not know that I actually needed someone to live that life with.  I am glad you are still here and that I got to meet you.  This world would have lost too much with you gone.”  He squeezed her hand.  [/color]

[color=f49ac2]"Oh I don't know about that...The world was fine before I was born and I have no doubt it will continue just fine without me."[/color] Eilis said rather self-deprecatingly. She looked down at his hand as he squeezed hers. Her smile returning at the gentle and kind gesture. This man had the strange capacity of making her feel good about herself.
Maybe it was the fact that he was frankly one of the few who was consistent in his regard for her and treated her with actual decency and kindness. 
If there were hidden motives behind his actions, they weren't malign. So she further silences that ever doubting voice inside her head.

[color=0054a6]“I will be by your side as I have already promised.  It will be my honor to be your shield.  Not as a disposable item but as a reason for my existence.  I ask that you allow me this.  I ask that you live this life with me?”
[/color]
He held his breath awaiting her response. 

Eilis listened to his words, his voice and his reponse. Whether it was the slight choked sound to indicate his carefulness or uncertainty in how to respond or the fact that he had held his breath at the end of it, made Eilis worry she had upset Arn somehow.
She raised her hand and placed it over his chest.
[color=f49ac2]"Breathe Arn."[/color] She requested before she took his hand in hers again, a thing she had done earlier but this time she placed it over her heart. 
[color=f49ac2]"I'd rather not have you refering to yourself as a shield, so how about this? Bow and Arrow, if you must use a weaponry analogy."[/color] She spoke teasingly, as she looked up at him with a glint of misschief in her eyes, the corners of her lips slightly upturned.
[color=f49ac2]"For one is not complete without the other, depends on the other and if I may ask so selfishly cannot find its way without the other guiding it. And your light is guiding me through a dark maze I could not manage to overcome on my own."[/color] She cast her eyes down again.
[color=f49ac2]"I still doubt whether or not I am doing you wrong by tainting you with association, but I can't do this on my own..."[/color] She frowned. 
[color=f49ac2]"All I wanted was a quiet simple life, it seems Fate has decided differently, but thankfully it allowed me to meet you."[/color] She stated looking at him again with a look of hope. [color=f49ac2]"I want to stay with you. I feel safe with you. I trust you....gods I sound like a child."[/color] She chastized herself before wondering something. 
Did he see her as one? A helpless child in need of protection? Not that she could blame him, she hadn't exactly offered him anything remotely resembling a woman's ettiquete in being proper and demure. She had been as inconsistent as the weather, Arn probably thought she was unpredictable.
And she was hardly a prize, tattoed from head to toe, some plain refugee with a bunch of mad Tahjai after her. She was more trouble than she was worth and that was her own evaluation. She wondered what Arn saw in her that made him so invested.
No, she knew, she had felt it too. Their connection. His innerflame, the light of his soul touching hers, warming her.
[color=f49ac2]"Forgive me, but I can't seem to let you go."[/color] She whispered before she leaned forward and closed her eyes placing a gentle kiss on his forehead.