[mature] there is no other version of this story; kagerus

[rapt]

there is a dream in the space between the hammer and the nail ------ the dream of about-to-be-hit, which is a bad dream ------------ but the nail will take the hit if it gets to sleep inside the wood forever He’s always been wont to kneel, it had come naturally. From the very first, when he was a spry-legged colt set before a monster, noses outreached, almost touching, almost - oh! How he’d loved it, how easily he had bent for him, he’s like a sapling, easy to twist, bend, mold. And then one monster goes or fades and then she’d been there, with her powers and her fangs, with the taste of his blood on her lips, with her gaze piercing him. She’d changed the world – quite literally – and given him things, given him deserts and whiteness and, best of all, the monster. You waited. Yes. Always yes. She startles at his words, and he is ready to chase her again – but she doesn’t run. She stays, even though part of her doesn’t want to. And then she’s closer, and he realizes his memory had not done justice to her, that he had forgotten the exact scent of her, the whorls and patterns on her marked skin. She stays, is the important thing. She stays. “I missed you too,” he says, then, “I’ve been looking for you. I thought you might have been a dream.” rapt caius x else