You twist, I turn, who's the first to burn?
You sit and stay, I don't obey.
He doesn’t know of the demons that still chase her, but he would have been sorry to learn of them. Despite the memories that now plague him, he finds himself caring that she is well. He’s not quite certain why, but he hopes it means he is not as far gone as he had believed. He had not been created to care about others. War and obedience are all he had been born for, all that had been drummed into him his entire life. His brothers had succumbed so easily, but he, strange outlier that he had been, had refused.Yet, he cares for her, even though he shouldn’t. There is hope in that.
Her voice is light when she responds, but the words bring a faint frown to his lips. His eyes drift to her chest - to the place where her heart beats behind her ribs. He can hear the steady thrum of it, strong and certain and alive. Whole. He isn’t certain how failing to remember her could cause her a muscle to break. He is certain however, that he would never want to be the cause of it. “Then I will endeavor to remember you always.”
As the conversation turns, death recaptures his attention. He had meted out so much of it in those bleak months. But she is still living, so he focuses on that. Focuses on her.
Though it had not been a conscious thought, hearing her say that the endless eclipse had not been a normal occurrence eases something inside of him. A subconscious part of him had feared there was more to the cycle than simple seasons. That the monsters come and go like the snows do. It is, in part, why he had fled.
He could not battle the monsters again without losing what remains of him.
He nods when she says that, though there is no relief in his expression. Perhaps it would come, with time. Or perhaps he has already lost too much of himself. He looks quickly away, unable to hold her gaze at that thought. Would she still want his friendship, even knowing he is as much a beast as the things that had crawled from the night?
Her careful words seem to dig beneath that tiny chink in his armor, as though she had known his thoughts somehow. It is all he can do to keep from flinching beneath her unwitting assault. His gaze slides back to her. Even if he had wanted to, he could not have kept the truth out of those aqua eyes.
Something hollow opens up inside his chest.
“I killed.” His voice is soft, but it is made no less brutal for it. He would not hide the thing he had to become. Not from her. She had seen his brothers, after all. Fought them. She already knows what he could have become. What he could still become. “Not on purpose, at first,” he continues. His jaw clenches briefly, forcing him to loosen it to continue. He can’t look at her now though. “Afterwards, I… hunted them.” He pulls his wings tighter against his sides, but still he doesn’t turn his gaze to her. He doesn’t want to see the rejection he knows must be written through every line of body. “I thought I could be different, if I got away. But I’m not. I’m still…” He sucks in a breath, steeling himself against the truth. His expression hardens, his voice growing brittle. “I’m still a monster, just like them.”
Voracious
@Aislyn