the wolves will chase you by the pale moonlight
{drunk and driven by the devil's hunger}
He laughed at her question, although the sound did not carry any true trace of humor. It was a dry sound, one born from familiarity and study but not feeling. Woolf had never found something truly a day in his life. Even as a colt, he had been eerily mature, the wisdom and age of his relatives having bled in his bones so that as he slipped from his mother’s womb, he breathed in their collective knowledge.
“I have lost nothing,” he said calmly with a serene roll of purple shoulders. “And I have certainly never let anything hold that much power over me.” Not entirely untrue, although not wholly true either. The closest thing he had come to loss was when Beqanna had bled his magic from his veins, leaving him a husk of who he truly was—leaving him to ghost the shadows without purpose until he had stumbled upon the strange child who had poured it back into him. Still, he had not considered that a crippling loss.
It had been temporary. Even then, he had known it.
Focusing his emerald eyes on her again, he tilted his head, puzzled. “Why do you let yourself be ruled by emotions that you yourself say are irrational?” It was one thing to be blinded by emotions, to lose yourself in the moment, but she seemed clear-headed enough to know that they were irrational—that they were without base. Why could she not overcome it? Why did she continue to let herself drown in it?
Curious more than anything, Woolf took a step backward from her and closed his eyes, drawing upon the unknown relation between them and his own blood. A small gash opened on his shoulder, a gash that he had reopened again and again, the blood pouring forth over the mulberry flesh. With a small hum, he brought forth a mirage, the old Falls shimmering around her. The water pooled around her ankles, the waterfall crashing down above them. It was a convincing enough mirage, but not entirely foolproof. If one was to look hard enough, you could see the transparent spots, the meadow visible through it.
For someone who hungered for it though, who ached for it, it would feel real enough.
Woolf
