[P] Dearest Runaveig,

[Only]

 

“ there are bullet holes where my compassion used to be ”

He should know better than to make assumptions about someone he did not know but Runaveig's tender, gentle smile and soft voice was disarming.  Only nearly forgot that his sole purpose for being back was to find Winona, Stephen's knife.  There were so many things about Runaveig that he liked that he forgot to be cautious and paranoid about meeting new people.  There were so many rules he had set up for himself that he was breaking this very moment.  Rules that could save a life, not his.


He thought of the medicine man that was killed last summer, in the breeze of a new August moon.  He made the mistake in committing the medicine man's face to memory.  Whatever Only remembered, Stephen would sometimes find in the lockbox of a brain they both shared.  Not everything was a shared memory but Only had to consciously remember that for everyone he encountered.  The Ilati Elder had been a tragic mistake of Only's and though he was not personally responsible for killing the man in cold blood -- he was the reason the murder even happened in the first place.  If he could blame anyone he would blame the knife -- for it was the loss of Winona which ignited the fuse to the bomb of events which lead to Turhan's death.


Runaveig was beautiful in a way that made Only blush and look down when she smiled.  She was precious to him in his own way.  If he wanted to talk to Runa and to get to know her, he would have to be careful about what information he chose to keep about her.  For his mind was a double agent sleeping, Only had to act as if Stephen were listening all the time.


"I would love to learn a gypsy song."  Only said with a genuine effort to reassure her that he wasn't a creep.  He had to reassure himself too, the darling peach had no idea, he aimed to keep it that way.  Meanwhile, underneath it all, Stephen played darts underneath the floorboards of his more upbeat Ego, striking nerves left and right within Only in an attempt to make him subconsciously loose focus. 


Tick-tock, tick-tock-  


"I assure you though, I might be better with an instrument.  I came to the market to find something that might better suit my talents, or lack there of so to speak.  Would you like to help me find something?"  


Only did not truly know his way around the Night Market, he knew how not to get trapped within it however.  He only had to make that grave mistake once to remember forever the escape routes straight out of dodge.  As Umbra appeared, Only's eyes drifted onto the movement and met eyes with the dragon.  Something within him shifted and self-reflection briefly distracted him from Runa's sweet introduction.  


"What?  I'm sorry,"  if not for his black scaled skin, he would have flushed again.  "Best friend, ah yes.  I had a best friend once. A dragon, that is.  He was so large though." 


And then he got very sick, and Only had to kill him in a terrible and very upsetting fight.  Henry never had a chance after Only froze him to death then shattered him into irreparable pieces.  A part of him relished in the glory of the win but it was only a small part.  The larger part of him suffered but time knew how to dull the pain by distancing memories.


"Are you from here?"  Only wanted to know.  Florentine, like Only, was definitely not from here.  Though Only was not from where Florentine was either - somewhere farther and more obscured.  "I'm from Ord, Nebraska.  A very small community."

O N L Y
and there is violence in my heart

 

@Runaveig   I knows a thing or two about corn and how to grow it.