i got issues, you got ‘em too
so give ‘em all to me, and i’ll give mine to you
i got issues, and one of 'em is how bad i need you
The forest changed it’s mind or let down its guard. It’s not like Misfit to examine such things too deeply. When the too familiar forest sounds are interrupted but the eerie loveliness of Haunt’s voice Misfit’s blue eyes find the familiar yellow glow in the shadows instinctively. Its been months and moments since he last heard that genderless lilt, and his nerve endings are all alight at once. A pair of eyes gazing at him from beneath tree cover that he imagines to be more abyss than shade. Could it be? They are formless, melted into the shadow, but Misfit doesn't need more than the voice to trot across the dusty clearing toward the bank of shadow.
Bars of light break across his blue-smudged back, he has filled out and muscle moves smoothly beneath his thin summer hide. His legs are still and will always be almost overlong and they reduce the distance across the meadow to nothing in no more than a few heartbeats.
“Yes I must have.” He is too weary of the solitude to try and deny or understand, but his indigo trimmed ears flick back and he stops, letting the sun sear a line in the earth between them. “Is it you? The forest shows me things but never anything as terrible or beautiful as you.” His voice turns husky at the end, recalling with a sudden wave of heat his best friend’s perfect darkness. He knows better than to search the darkness for their shape. The waking need to be free of his forest prison and return to his life and the important beings in it sends a quiver racing beneath his skin.
There is no scent to pull from the air, he tries all the same just to be certain that there is nothing there but the leaf-litter and pine. It might be strange to search for a void but Misfit has done so much of his life, hoping that the nothingness contains a playmate, a lover.
If this is a forest trick and he’s finally about to be eaten or turned into one of the abominations he’s seen drifting through the trees he is ready. He might even die convinced that the moment of false reunion was enough to make up for a life without his living shadow. It’s too bad his mother will never know what became of him, that would be a great regret. He’ll have to try hard to not frighten her when he is a ghost. Maybe Haunt will find him then.
@[Haunt]
