I'm the hero of this story
I don't need to be saved
I don't need to be saved
He is surprised by her touch on his hip; his skin shivers beneath it like something shy or wild. It has not been so long since much of his work came from touching strangers like this - first gently as a whisper, then firmly like a thumb to ripe fruit, enough to bruise. But it feels like a different lifetime, another man. August isn’t sure what to do with the realization that he misses it. That touch makes him feel real in a way little else can.
Warset, she names herself, and he sees the way her eyes flare like a comet over the desert or a blade tilted toward the sun. Neither does he miss the way she emphasizes the first syllable, and that, too, feels like tapping into the man-he-was.
The desert, he thinks, will always bring him war.
He has turned away again before her teeth press into his skin (more warm ripe fruit, now bitten) so she does not see the expression that flickers across his fine-boned face - swift, small pain, and a sweet-bitter twisted kind of longing. And then he tosses his head, back to golden bravado, and wills their shadows longer, bigger behind them as they walk.
“Well, Warset,” he says, because he can’t quite take the silence, “let’s go hunting.”
@Warset
