I'm coming back again
I want to live tonight
There is a purr in the way she says his name and he watches the way her beak runs through soft gleaming feathers as she settles to his left, keeping in view of his good eye. The stallion feels like this is another show of good faith while the bear rattles his bones and reminds him how sly predators can be. Still, he doesn’t feel quite as on edge as he had been minutes ago and he snorts, amused, when she refuses to tell him who she is. “Are we still strangers Hippogryff?” He asks her with a small grin that falters slightly when her magic snags gently into his heart. An irregular beat that disappears as quickly as it comes and when he feels nothing else, it becomes forgotten.
“I can’t recall ever giving a stranger a nickname.” He says quietly, considering her and that tone of voice that the beast inside of him recognizes. “Usually they are reserved for friends.” He banters back easily, not noticing that his golden coat was starting to pale as the need to shift began to press against him. She stands and he becomes hyper aware of just how close she is to him, his breath shallow as the corner of his mouth pulls into something curious. “Why would I need you Hippogryff?” He asks her gently but that hook in his heart tugs again and he thinks perhaps it would be nice to have someone like her at his back if he should need it.
The molten flecks of his eye are suddenly distrustful with what she asks next. “No.” He says firmly. No, he was not a killer. Once, almost once, he had given in. A desperate attempt to remove the glass heart that had hung heavy in his chest. It was the ghosts in his head that had convinced him otherwise in the end. Although he hadn’t seen the images of madness in a long time, he can still hear Magnus’s voice in his head. "That is not who you are.” But there is that soft caress against his heart and he remembers Oceane giving him permission to hunt if he wanted to. And in these dark golden woods filled with terrible things… Would it hurt to allow the bear (so patient all these years) a chance to truly be itself?
“No.” He says again but this time he sounds uncertain.
Ledger
@Manikin