oh, this my weapon, this my loam. this my blood, this my bone.
Brigade wants to disappear into the forest floor.
He wants to fall into the leaves; he wants to feel them fall beneath his hooves until he is nothing but the dirt and the sky and the world that feels so very far from this one. He wants to be the sun-baked soil and the riverbed. He wants to be the wolves that chase the shadows underneath the moon’s milky light, and he wants to be the birds that fling themself into the wild abyss. He wants to be wild and free and uncaged.
But beneath her gaze, he is trapped and he stiffens, the muscles taut beneath his rich coat.
She gives her name, but he doesn’t reciprocate just yet. He doesn’t take it and tuck it close into his chest. He just holds it lightly, loosely, letting it rest on his palms and wondering at what he is meant to do with it. Part of him wants to put it somewhere for safekeeping. Part of it wants to reject it immediately. Instead he does nothing, the grey of his eyes growing stormier and cloudier, the rest of his face impassive.
The silence between them continues to stretch until it is nearly brittle, until he can feel the tension and the way that the fabric nearly rips and rends. He can hear her breathing, can feel his own swallow the space between them, and he fancies he can nearly hear her pulse pounding, thrumming, humming so lightly.
Finally, finally he straights slightly, his head coming up, the proud, twisting antlers sitting on his brow like a crown. “Brigade,” he offers, letting the name sit like a heavy stone on his tongue. The air feels warmer as she sneaks closer, but he brushes it off as an oddity and just stands still and quiet. Part of him knows he should say more, should try to ease the discomfort of the conversation, but he can’t.
He can’t, his throat closes up and so he just stands, the muscle in his jaw jumping.
@[Brinly]