Does he? Want to live?
Maybe he should ask himself. Maybe he should peel back the layers of flesh and sludge and the sticky black venom that binds them. Maybe he should dig around in his dark dirty caverns, see if he finds more than grime beneath his nails and a voice from the deep that says yes over and over, a drum in the core of him that centers its eyes on the hostile spear of her horn and grins with his mouth.
Andras knows what he will find there. He thinks he does not have to look to see it. He thinks he knows its shape and its voice because it fills him like his thunder and if there is room in him for anything but this nameless rage, this desperate and all-encompassing savagery-- he does not want to know. Not tonight, at least.
Tonight, when the dark is heavy and thick on his skin and in his throat, the kind of lightless night that hunts deer in the woods. Tonight, with his toe on the line and his hungry, hungry heart like a trapped bird in his chest, all wings and screeching. Tonight, when Thana turns her face on him and Andras wonders for the second time in his life if a woman would unmake him given the chance.
The thought of it makes his mouth water.
Air pressure changes, heat closes in from behind. When Thana's beast growls it is a sound that Andras hears in his bones and his bones answer, perfect. The beast-hum and the electric hum are so loud he almost doesn't hear her sigh, almost doesn't see the light of his magic dance across the surface of her horn. On all sides there is danger, danger in front and behind and without and within.
His magic hums along like it knows this song, like it knows it is just as beastly as any monstrous thing. Have you come looking for us? she asks, and Andras grins with a mouth full of teeth and magic.
"I have," he breathes, below the sharp pop of his magic, the baritone growl of her hunger, the impatient puff of her ghost. The warden lifts his wings off his back and squares his shoulders.
Eligos aches, please, in her ear, though Andras can't hear it.
Andras dares, please, as he meets her eye and the bird in his chest beats its wings on his ribs.
Maybe he should ask himself. Maybe he should peel back the layers of flesh and sludge and the sticky black venom that binds them. Maybe he should dig around in his dark dirty caverns, see if he finds more than grime beneath his nails and a voice from the deep that says yes over and over, a drum in the core of him that centers its eyes on the hostile spear of her horn and grins with his mouth.
Andras knows what he will find there. He thinks he does not have to look to see it. He thinks he knows its shape and its voice because it fills him like his thunder and if there is room in him for anything but this nameless rage, this desperate and all-encompassing savagery-- he does not want to know. Not tonight, at least.
Tonight, when the dark is heavy and thick on his skin and in his throat, the kind of lightless night that hunts deer in the woods. Tonight, with his toe on the line and his hungry, hungry heart like a trapped bird in his chest, all wings and screeching. Tonight, when Thana turns her face on him and Andras wonders for the second time in his life if a woman would unmake him given the chance.
The thought of it makes his mouth water.
Air pressure changes, heat closes in from behind. When Thana's beast growls it is a sound that Andras hears in his bones and his bones answer, perfect. The beast-hum and the electric hum are so loud he almost doesn't hear her sigh, almost doesn't see the light of his magic dance across the surface of her horn. On all sides there is danger, danger in front and behind and without and within.
His magic hums along like it knows this song, like it knows it is just as beastly as any monstrous thing. Have you come looking for us? she asks, and Andras grins with a mouth full of teeth and magic.
"I have," he breathes, below the sharp pop of his magic, the baritone growl of her hunger, the impatient puff of her ghost. The warden lifts his wings off his back and squares his shoulders.
Eligos aches, please, in her ear, though Andras can't hear it.
Andras dares, please, as he meets her eye and the bird in his chest beats its wings on his ribs.
let this whole town hear your knuckles crack
they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace.
