[open] swallowed the sickness, a fever, a flame; any

[brunhilde]

i'm a geyser, feel it bubbling from below
hear it call, hear it call, hear it call to me, constantly

Brun should not feel surprise when Bub snakes to her side; but when his ribs lock tightly with hers, the shock chokes her. She coughs loudly, abhorrent and inappropriate in the way it starkly interrupts the three. For a moment, one fleeting and painful, the panic rises bloody and frothing in her eyes. She is reduced to the crimson foam of a deer running too hard from its captor, the basest and most disgusting component of fear.

It runs wild and free across her face, that frightened deer.

Then she snaps out of it—

Back to deceivingly timid and meek.

She lifts herself to her dragon’s touch, her jugular jumping when his lips brush over it. She thinks he might rip it open once they are alone.

“Plaything, darling?” she purrs in an attempt to appease him.

The way Brigade parrotted Bub prickles painfully down her spine, but her focus remains tightly on her lover. She opens her mouth to insult Brigade, to keep the fury beside her quiet, but nothing comes out; instead, she turns back with a strained smile to the wine-stained stallion. The crunch of the soil Brun kicks fills the awkward silence that stretches between them.

Brigade reminds her of the wild thing she once was. It is not a memory, or even a coherent idea—but it is a powerful feeling, one that washes over her tongue and clears her mind.

“He is a friend.”

She’s lying, obvious to only her and Brigade, drunk on the absolution of not knowing what will happen next.

and hear the harmony only when it's harming me
it's not real, it's not real, it's not real enough

Brunhilde