YOU'RE WALKING IN THE SHADOWS OF YOUR FEAR AND YOU'RE HEADED
FOR THE GALLOWS SIN AROUND YOUR THROAT AND NO ONE'S NEAR
FOR THE GALLOWS SIN AROUND YOUR THROAT AND NO ONE'S NEAR
She comes to his part of the forest (he is not arrogant enough to think he actually owns it—it is just the part that the sunlight cannot reach and crowded by gnarled, twisted trees, making it a place so few ever want to go), and he cannot deny the way it ignites his curiosity, or the way something stirs to life in the abyss of his chest.
He was positioned in an especially thick area of brush and trees, where the limbs and leaves hid the red of his eyes, allowing him to watch, undetected, for anyone that felt like venturing into the deep dark of the forest. It was an easy hunting ground; the darkness and the creak of the trees, the sudden rustling of birds startled from their perches—they all came together to set nearly any who passed through here on edge. It was a rare thing for him to need to inject his own shot of fear; by the time they reached him they were already afraid to the point he could nearly feel their racing pulse on his tongue, could taste the adrenaline that radiated from them.
Like a spider sitting patiently in its web, he simply waited for them to come to him, and rarely did they ever see the red-eyed bodach that siphoned all their fear away from them.
But Beryl comes, and any pang of hunger he may have felt is all at once forgotten.
He is reminded of her shadows and the way she had reached out to touch his own, as if she had expected them to bend to her. He is reminded too how she had accused him of trying to frighten her, which oddly enough, had not been his intention.
She has been a thorn in his mind ever since, small enough that he could mostly ignore it until something brushes against it to remind him that it is there.
“Beryl,” her name itself curls like a shadow from his tongue, and he is almost nothing but a pair of gleaming red eyes stepping toward her as he peels himself away from the utter black he had been hiding in. He watches her for what seems like a long moment, ignoring the reflexive urge to search for fear that might be lurking inside of her. Instead, he sweeps his gaze up to the warm glow above her head, and in his coarse voice there is almost a smile when he says, “You look different from last time I saw you.”
He was positioned in an especially thick area of brush and trees, where the limbs and leaves hid the red of his eyes, allowing him to watch, undetected, for anyone that felt like venturing into the deep dark of the forest. It was an easy hunting ground; the darkness and the creak of the trees, the sudden rustling of birds startled from their perches—they all came together to set nearly any who passed through here on edge. It was a rare thing for him to need to inject his own shot of fear; by the time they reached him they were already afraid to the point he could nearly feel their racing pulse on his tongue, could taste the adrenaline that radiated from them.
Like a spider sitting patiently in its web, he simply waited for them to come to him, and rarely did they ever see the red-eyed bodach that siphoned all their fear away from them.
But Beryl comes, and any pang of hunger he may have felt is all at once forgotten.
He is reminded of her shadows and the way she had reached out to touch his own, as if she had expected them to bend to her. He is reminded too how she had accused him of trying to frighten her, which oddly enough, had not been his intention.
She has been a thorn in his mind ever since, small enough that he could mostly ignore it until something brushes against it to remind him that it is there.
“Beryl,” her name itself curls like a shadow from his tongue, and he is almost nothing but a pair of gleaming red eyes stepping toward her as he peels himself away from the utter black he had been hiding in. He watches her for what seems like a long moment, ignoring the reflexive urge to search for fear that might be lurking inside of her. Instead, he sweeps his gaze up to the warm glow above her head, and in his coarse voice there is almost a smile when he says, “You look different from last time I saw you.”
T O R R Y N
@Beryl