Talyndre Ama'thas

Finger on the (Im)pulse

And so she stayed. His borrowed room was dark by the time his pulse slowed and her feather-soft breaths evened out against his skin. There was no denying the warmth of her, curled up inside of his beneath the half-hearted cover of the quilt on which they lay.

The weight of her head on his arm felt like trust he had no business having, and yet there it was all the same. Had he meant for this to happen when he’d suggested they bring their late night meal upstairs? It wasn’t often he did anything without forethought, without a plan. Survival instincts honed over decades had never failed him before.

He sometimes thought that’s all he was. A series of instincts incarnate- to eat, to sleep, to live, to kill. To seek connection where he could, in fits and starts that sought to fill a space only one thing really could. 

It was a part of himself he sometimes ignored. Far too often the results recorded in his personal history were written there in fear, and blood- the truth, that he wasn’t meant for much more than this, plain before they had a chance to dry. 

Instinct told others to look away. Could he blame them?

But Talon had been close enough to see, to feel the hollow place inside him with every starving slam of his hips. The sweet violence in their tangled limbs left imprints in the room, like teeth sinking into soft, tender flesh, even after their sweat-slicked bodies had cooled.

She didn’t need to understand to feel that emptiness, hear her own fevered cries echo off the shadowy space into which she’d crawled. It wouldn’t have been the first time someone had caught a glimpse of something else, an otherness they couldn’t quite put their finger on. Except that they never saw him again, had scarcely known his face before it was over. 

But there she was, blissful in sleep, with traces of him all over her, as though it really didn’t matter what he was. And in the days to come, she’d be there still… over-pouring self doubt and drinks behind the bar.

He couldn’t breathe without catching her rich, earthy scent. Couldn’t close his eyes without seeing the wild abandon in her arching back, feel it digging into him with blunt nails at home in the dirt. The salty-sweet taste of her remained on his tongue, mingling with the coppery tang of a torn lip, and he knew he should leave… instinct told him he should have already been gone, but the gentle hands that traced his cheeks yet lingered. Steady as they’d been with the fox behind the stables, leaving him every bit as gutted.

She had stayed, and at least until the sun rose and another day of tracking ‘we’ through this unfamiliar place began, he would too.