12-11-2016, 10:52 AM
we’re on each other’s team…
She stretched. Hearing him finally making his way back home after weeks of staying away. He slinks, his motions cautious as if he is being meek; she knows better. His truncated steps only belie on thing. Her wolf is angry.
Reagan shifts, facing away from him, her ears flicking backwards, feeling every pulse and breath that he gives off as he slowly gets closer. She can feel the warmth of his heartbeat, and the running of his blood through his veins. She is as inside him as he is inside her—her eyes slid shut when she felt his pain. And yet, he had not come home. She had been left to rule alone while he went into hiding to lick his wounds. After a week, she had sent Jinju after him, and neither of them had returned. Suddenly, as if out of a dream, her quickening heartbeat was familiar with the rushing of excitement—but she forced herself to stay where she was. The moss creeped up the tree trunks around her, and she pawed at the ground with her hooves. Little divots to remind her not to go anywhere, as it was getting harder to root herself to the earth.
She wanted nothing more than to pretend that he hadn’t retreated into himself. She wanted nothing more than to embrace him as a lover and create a moment that would ship them both to nirvana and forget this uncomfortable feeling that was surely going to take place. There was a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, and she began to tremble with anger and hurt—trying to keep herself composed as he approached ever closer.
She was aware of what happened—she was always aware of what happened. That Ruan’s wings now belonged to another was no surprise to her. But he’d always known that those wings were temporary. Life deals harsh cards at times, but what she was waiting for him to discover was the true root cause of his anger. What had kept him away from home, while she tended the fires to stay lit for his ever-impending arrival?
When at last he steps on a fallen branch with a loud crack, she flinches; a bolt of light shoots from her body and passed his head. She makes no move to turn around—the lichens have rooted her to the spot—but her voice is frozen; terse. Perhaps as staccato as the beats of his frozen heart. “Where. Have you been.” It is not a question; they both know this. But whatever lay in the future for Reagan and Ruan would unfold into this conversation, and would be determined by whatever choice words he might be bold enough to speak.
She might be tempted to violence.
McDonald’s is always looking to turn potatoes into chips.