Rambaldi was about to open his mouth to tell Sanshoku that no, he wasn’t afraid of her, but . . . he realized that wasn’t necessarily the truth. He was scared of opening up. Of letting her in. He had paid the price for an open heart full of hope long ago. He should have learned his lesson when his mother lost her throne. He didn’t know if he could allow himself to actually fall in love, to accept a relationship. He hadn’t loved Ember, seeing as they only saw each other for around ten minutes, and they hadn’t known each other, but she had blamed him for everything bad to happen to her family in Phobus’ War, even though he hadn’t even killed a single soul. Rather, he had nearly died himself.
“Not of you specifically,” he muttered, almost before he knew what he was doing. For some reason, Sanshoku’s usage of the term ‘little bird’ to refer to Rambaldi was . . . he couldn’t describe it, other than he liked it somehow.

“So tell me when you’re gonna let me in.”