sochi/laura pony;

[sochi]

there are wolves in my head and their howling
there was a garden of evil in the palm of my hand

He is caught between the ferocity of the killer and something softer, something more understanding.

It intrigues her, the way he is somewhat of a reflection of her own worst and best natures, and she finds that part of her wants to peel back the layers, set his armor down to see what lies beneath. But she doesn’t move, doesn’t give any indication of such thoughts, just considers him with her silver eyes, molten and unreadable beneath the swath of wild forelock. At his question, she just laughs, the sound low and throaty and not at all amused. “You could say that.” Because it had been surreal. More surreal than she had ever experienced in her life. She can feel the water now, murky and thick. The blood floating up around her.

No —

Not now.

Now was not the time for nightmares.

She refocuses on him, trying to drown herself in this conversation, to shield herself from everything else that exists outside of it. “I don’t think I will ever forget it,” she confesses, thinking back to the memory of tearing apart the chest, of the way that sickly heart felt sliding down her throat. The fierce hunger that had consumed her until she was blind with the bloodlust, knowing nothing except the need to feed.

“I didn’t know I was capable of a lot of things.” At this, one corner of her mouth lifts into a wry smile. “But I don’t think I am who I thought I was before.” She had thought she was something more pure when she was growing up—something kind and simple and black and white. But now? Now she has blood on her hands and, worse, a roiling hunger in her belly. It lifts its head with her every morning, sharpening her senses, that need to slip into her feline form a constant hum in the back of her throat. It would be so easy to live that way. To ignore her mother’s warnings. Who cared if the others didn’t want her company? Who cared if the masses found her unappealing when her canines glimmered and claws sunk into the soil?

There is a defiant glint in her eye when she looks at him now, her chin raised just slightly.

He didn’t look like he’d run.

And she was tired of apologizing for what she was.

“I’m Sochi.”

now I'm broken and bleeding, I’ll never find my way

S

OCHI

stranger in this land

@[Castile]