BAD
He doesn’t mind that the boy laughs. He knows the absurdity of his name, saw the twitches that passed the other’s faces as his father introduced him. He had asked, once, why he had been named so, but his father had only shrugged, said it was the first thing I thought and then struggled, added not that I didn’t want you, not that you’re bad, it just made sense and of course it didn’t make sense, but what could he expect, when his own father was named Garbage?
(He didn’t learn the origin of his father’s name, that it was a word spat from the golden queen’s mouth, a word that sank into him like a blade and has lived there evermore.)
He shifts. He can feel the hound beneath his skin, itching to shift. It’s like that, sometimes, when he feels restless, when the dark is thick enough to taste. He doesn’t succumb to the urge, not fully, but he lets it flick across his skin – a shimmer of canine features, a glint of teeth – and then he is merely a horse again, standing in the dark with this stranger and his own strange name - Abandon.
“Two fine names,” he says, and his own voice is light, teasing, “but then, my main dad’s name is Garbage, so it’s a family tradition for me, I guess.”
does the dark feel warmer than the light, now?
@[abandon] sorry to go a month and then post this garbage!!