I need you to be a monster
which is to say, I am trying not to love you

Rapt is lost.
Though, it’s not really lost, as he has no home to be lost from. But usually he walks a familiar trail, because there is comfort to the same handful of paths, of knowing where his feet will land. But Beqanna shook and shuddered and new (old?) lands abounded, and now the trails Rapt once knew well lead to different places.
(Sometimes it’s the same. Sometimes it’s almost the same but there’s something, a faint difference he can’t quite articulate, something that leaves him uneasy.)

He’s by the river. He knows that much. He knows the river well enough, though not the full extent of it – has not followed it from mouth to foot. He’s stopped at its edge for a drink when he sees her, a red roan mare. And he usually would move on – Rapt is not the most sociable, with his odd preferences, his idiosyncrasies – but there is something about her.
She looks lost, too.
And so he steps closer – not much, leaves her plenty to room to run, if she thinks him a threat.
(Laughable – Rapt prefers to kneel to monsters rather than be one himself.)
“Hello,” he says, voice soft, then, “are you all right?”
As if he has anything to offer. Still, it feels good to speak, to smile at another being, and so he stays, and waits to see what she will do.

which is to say, I am still dreaming of kissing your claws