Sochi has never been one to fully understand her own feelings.

They are tangled things, messy, and for someone who infinitely prefers the cleanliness of a black and white living, she instead merely ignores them. She lets herself breathe in the cold air of autumn and any of the things that may form in the back of her mind—suspicion, distrust, confusion—simply melt away. Perhaps she feels a little more rash, perhaps a little reckless, but these are at least things she can control.

So she gladly slips away from Loess, pointing instead toward the immediate south. She shifts, finding that her feline body comes quickly and easily, and when she opens her eyes, the world comes into stark relief. The night settles heavily around her as she lunges forward, silent as her paws collide with the hardened ground of Loess. Her breath comes steadily as she focuses on the path before her, as the kingdom that she has known so well begins to fade and the forest that sits on its border creeps up around her.

The ground grows softer, the trees thicker, and she nearly shivers in delight as she catches the scent of the deer that run before her. Then, the emotions that she felt tickling at the back of her throat fade completely and she is left with nothing but instinct. Her body moves like a missile through a familiar pattern as she weaves through the trees, coming up downwind. Her nose twitches and her tail flicks.

Eventually, she lunges with snapping jaws.

When the fog of her mind clears, she realizes that she has the deer’s throat in her jaws and she bites down all the harder, shaking until she feels something like satisfaction settle into her belly. She drops the prey to the forest floor. The cream of her face is stained crimson, she knows, and it will be darker by the time that the night is done. Trembling slightly—with energy unspent, with anger, with hunger—she glances down and then her eyes flash up as she hears the sound of something moving in the darkness.

well, I can try to get you closer but I know you’d break your neck just to see the stars
and if we don’t dare to hold it then this reckless wandering love was never ours

She does not recognize the thing that prowls forward from the shadows. She does not recognize the feline eyes or the fangs or the armor the crawls up its sides. Does not recognize the features, even as they contort beneath his own gifts. But the truth is that she recognizes him. Recognizes the hatred and the way he hunts the hunter. Recognizes the need that drives him forward, even when he spits and snaps at her.

Nothing like fear comes to the surface. Nothing reacts in her and her eyes sharpen.

“You’ve come to kill me then?” Her voice is husky and low, her lips spreading into a wide smile, the white of her teeth only mildly stained with the crimson of her kill that still drips down her chin. There is nearly something thrilling about the idea of him trying to kill her—something that makes her feel nearly alive with the thought of life slowly draining from her. Would it hurt? How much exactly could she heal?

He circles but she doesn’t move. She just tilts her head, an ear flicking slightly as she monitors the way that he prowls around her, a tail twitching. When he comes back into her direct line of sight, she doesn’t bother to hide the way that her yellow eyes go to his throat, evaluating the thick of the scales that grow.

“I’ve killed a lot in my life,” she confesses but there’s no guilt that comes with the words, nothing that brings the shame she had fought against so much in her early life. “I don’t know if you are one of the victims,” she says with a smile, shaking lightly and feeling drops of blood fly from her.

“If you were, then I have no regrets. Death clearly has loose fingers nowadays.”

well, I can try to get you closer but I know you’d break your neck just to see the stars
and if we don’t dare to hold it then this reckless wandering love was never ours

There are parts of her that are disappointed that he does not carry out his rage against her. There are parts of her that hunger for the outlet of a fight—for the feel of primal rage that makes no sense out of context. She hungers for something to wrap her head around that makes sense, that she can at least understand. Something solid and real when the rest of it all feels as insubstantial as smoke, falling between her grasp.

But, he doesn’t entirely disappoint, and her feline head snaps up to study him closer.

His body changes, shifting fluidly—pieces of it fading away and colors beginning to appear as they spiderweb over the hard muscle and lean pieces of him. “I very well could still be your enemy,” she smiles with bloodied teeth as she mimics his shifting, although hers is more dramatic. Within a second, she stands before him as herself again, although she feels no less a predator with these dull teeth.

Her eyes bleed from yellow to hard silver, mercurial and unreadable beneath the swath of her black forelock as she angles her head. “Risk,” she says the same, weighing it on her tongue and finding it acceptable. “You should be glad,” she rolls a shoulder, remembering the bite of death and the cold of the ocean. “Death is no kind companion.” Not that she thinks she needs to tell him—he clearly knows.

For a second, she wonders at his words, thinking them through. There was a time where they would have meant nothing to her, or at least very little. Family had never been something that was the pinnacle of her life and for a breath of time, it was something she had abandoned entirely in the interest of herself. The fact that she had turned to it again—made it such a critical component of her life—feels weak and she feels some sort of bitter hatred for it. “I may be alone,” she admits but straightens as she says it, like she could pull together the armor of her contempt. “There are worse things.” She’s not sure that there is.

well, I can try to get you closer but I know you’d break your neck just to see the stars
and if we don’t dare to hold it then this reckless wandering love was never ours

His laugh sparks one of her own and it is a bitter, vicious thing. Rough and raspy on her tongue as she lets it roll like thunder through her chest. “Stray is accurate enough,” she says, unwilling now to give him her name simply because he wants it—simply because he asks. She does not believe that a name has any great weight to it. She does not believe that it gives command over her—does not give them power.

And yet—

She holds onto it, swallows it down, meets his gaze as he describes death and shrugs in response. He was right, she knows. Death was only what you made of it. Permanent. Temporary. Something to be feared or something to be chased. She knows better than most, even as the feel of need beats in her throat. The need for the dark of it and the endless depths of it. The need to lose herself in the chase of death.

His question catches her off guard though and it shows on her face. A brief moment of surprise and then something like pain that is quickly washed away in blank neutrality. “I have never been known for being particularly lovable,” she finally manages and there is a part of her—weak and pathetic—that wonders if that is what drove Castile to another. Was she kinder? Softer? Was she someone more lovable than she?

She hates the part of her that wonders and growls before she can stop it.

“I don’t care if I am,” she says between gritted teeth, lifting her chin, and even she is not certain whether she is lying or not. Does she care? Does she wish she could make herself something that she is not?

But then, suddenly, she feels the same cold, heavy weight settle in her chest and she knows. Knows that she cannot be anything but herself and just like she abandoned hope of apologizing for her predatory nature so will she abandon hope of apologizing for this. If she was unlovable, so be it. She would be.

well, I can try to get you closer but I know you’d break your neck just to see the stars
and if we don’t dare to hold it then this reckless wandering love was never ours