DESPOINA
It hurts to look at him almost as much as it hurt to never see him—and that she doesn’t understand.
She wishes it made sense one way or another. That some part of this would at least feel good or in any way desirable so that she could lean into that like the weak creature that she is, but both ways equal pain. She is left aching or bruising no matter where she turns and she realizes that it is enough to turn her mad.
Maybe she already is mad.
Maybe she always has been.
She swallows hard when he comes closer to her, a motion that is only detectable by the way that his eyes get larger and the glow of them brighter. The darkness should scare her more than it does, it should strike fear into her very bones, but she knows that there is nothing out in the shadows worse than her own fear. She is a creature of hell, and there is nothing that could not claim her as their own.
This darkness is her birthright, she thinks.
So she grits her teeth and feels the muscle jump in her jaw. Maybe he should see her for what she is, she thinks. Maybe he should know her for exactly what she has always been and the wild idea nearly makes her laugh like something was broken inside of her. “Why?” she asks and she can’t stop the way that her voice sounds so cold—so unlike the sweet girl she had been, the one so desperate for attention. For him.
Without warning, she shifts. She is nearly the size of herself normally, but that is the only part of her appearance that remains similar. The rest is wholly different. From the claws that dig into the soft earth beneath her to the black fur that does not reflect light the same as her usual iridescent sheen. Her eyes glow as red as his own as she stands there, refusing to feel shame for the body that has always been hers.
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
And if her voice is a tad colder still, who is to say?
I guess the sound of your voice in the aching will just have to do