07-18-2026, 05:49 PM
She does not grab at the shadows the way she once did, with the same desperation, like a drowning thing, air-starved and delirious. She is not drowning now. Perhaps if she had tried, she’d recognize him sooner, but so many years have past. Another life. Instead, it is the forest that knows him first and hushes around them, hunter and huntress, devourers. Her hooked ears twist in that interminable quiet, and she pauses for the darkness to reveal what it hides from her - it will, it always does, and she can afford to wait.
Shhhh…Against the backdrop of night and bare black branches soughing in the canopy breeze, shadow moves on shadow, shifts and parts, and she catches the red eyelight just as uncertainty makes it flicker. They will run from her.
No, she thinks, a muscle in her cheek jumping as her tongue works against the roof of her mouth. This darkness tastes familiar. The eyelight flares with decision. They will not run from her. Perhaps they should. Would anyone who knew her before recognize the coldness in her eyes?
Beryl.
Her name on his tongue is a growl, rusted with disuse. It was a purr, once, curling around her misery and she dove deep into it, grasping at the soft edges of him where his shade melted against her light. Torryn drifts toward her, dark from dark, ethereal, cryptic, his endless hunger a stab at the chasm in her heart. She wonders if what he will find there will be as satisfying as the despair she fed him on in her youth. Now they are both ageless monsters, though she could hide it better, if she tried.
“Torryn.” There’s no way to infuse the word with all the things he set in motion for her. Her head cocks to one side, a predatory, avian, motion. She is not blameless in what followed their meetings in these woods.
“There is no escape. Surely by now you’ve learned that?”
A flash of sharp-toothed grin - more snarl than smile - suggests badly that she is joking. Beryl has learned to have a sense of humor at last. It is not a good one.
Shhhh…Against the backdrop of night and bare black branches soughing in the canopy breeze, shadow moves on shadow, shifts and parts, and she catches the red eyelight just as uncertainty makes it flicker. They will run from her.
No, she thinks, a muscle in her cheek jumping as her tongue works against the roof of her mouth. This darkness tastes familiar. The eyelight flares with decision. They will not run from her. Perhaps they should. Would anyone who knew her before recognize the coldness in her eyes?
Beryl.
Her name on his tongue is a growl, rusted with disuse. It was a purr, once, curling around her misery and she dove deep into it, grasping at the soft edges of him where his shade melted against her light. Torryn drifts toward her, dark from dark, ethereal, cryptic, his endless hunger a stab at the chasm in her heart. She wonders if what he will find there will be as satisfying as the despair she fed him on in her youth. Now they are both ageless monsters, though she could hide it better, if she tried.
“Torryn.” There’s no way to infuse the word with all the things he set in motion for her. Her head cocks to one side, a predatory, avian, motion. She is not blameless in what followed their meetings in these woods.
“There is no escape. Surely by now you’ve learned that?”
A flash of sharp-toothed grin - more snarl than smile - suggests badly that she is joking. Beryl has learned to have a sense of humor at last. It is not a good one.
Beryl
@Torryn