and all of us, we’re meant for the fire, but we keep rising up and walking the wires
It was difficult, at first, to be constantly battered with the thoughts of others.
She could feel them pressing into her mind, sticky fingers who cared little about her privacy and her need for quiet. It was difficult to grow up in that roar of thought—constantly intruded and constantly forced to bear witness to the often worst in others. So perhaps it is not surprising that she is as cynical as she is. That she is as distrusting when she has seen how often the thoughts of others contradict their words.
And perhaps why she is so afraid of Fox whose thoughts clearly align with his words.
He is the first, if not the only, soul she has ever met who is so clearly good through and through. Even her father, who she had idolized as a child, had eventually disappointed her—turning from the love of her mother and finding it elsewhere, fathering children who were not her full blood.
No, it’s not a surprise that Lynx is the way that she is.
However, it is surprising how she tolerates his closeness, warmed by his humor and draw in by the gravity of his goodness. She aches for it, in a way she didn’t expect or understand. She aches for a simple life, something that she can almost imagine. Her, kind and gentle. Hime, jovial and endlessly patient. Children running amok—she hisses in a breath, throwing the brakes on the thought.
Children.
Children?
It was a damn good thing that he couldn’t read her thoughts.
The fear of being discovered causes her to stiffen. “I can find my own pleasure,” she says, voice tight, although she’s not sure she’s ever found anything remotely pleasurable before. “Beside, pleasure is vastly overrated.” Again, something that wasn’t quite the whole truth. After all, what did she have to compare?
“No secrets,” a surprisingly harsh whisper. “No one should need to keep secrets.”
Her eyes flash dangerously but before she’s able to stop him, he’s at her side, lips finding the ticklish spot on her ribs. A girlish laugh escapes her, the ice of her face dissolving into something soft and nearly unrecognizable. She skitters to the side, swinging around to face him. For a second, the light remains in her face, something like affection warming her features before she quickly snaps the mask back on.
lynx