violence
She isn’t sure that she wants him to be close – isn’t sure she can keep herself from hurting him, if he is close, because it is in her nature to hurt. Because she is hurting, and it is a new experience, a unique one, and one she wants rid of, one she wants spread to them, the way a virus leaps from host to host.
“Do you…” she trails off. She does not ask for help. She does not.
But, she is lost. She is changed. She is without her bones.
“Do you know what happened?”
There had been a decree, on the mountain, but she had not listened. She has never been very good at listening.
But before he can answer – before she can question that we, said by a man alone – another comes forth. He has a strange look in his eye – lost, like he does not know his own skin. She knows it – a primal part of her recognizes it.
Loss.
She does not know him (though had they met earlier, as whole beings, she would have delighted in him, would have tried to jump into his skin and know what demons do).
“Who are you?” she demands of him, for he is close, and she flattens her ears back. She does not know him. She does not know he might have enchanted her, had they met on different terms.
I’d stay the hand of god, but war is on your lips
