[mature] here it comes with no warning

[Etojo]

In the night, deep in the murkiest troughs of a forest somewhere far away Etojo twitched, the leaves of his coat rustling on a breezeless night as his body uncontrollably quivered. Normally a deep sleeper, and yet for some inexplicable reason, on this night he woke suddenly with a restlessness and an erratic beat of heart. Lucrezia… she was as clear as anything could be clear, as if she was real and before him. He saw her all young and silly and annoying, then grown and beautiful, with wings and without, embodying the beauty of autumn unlike him. She smelled of pine needles, and then something more. He remembered how he’d been left intrigued by the mysteriousness of it, along with the realisation Lucrezia had become so much more than just King Rodrik’s daughter, and in that same moment so long ago had also become so much more to him. His eyes opened abruptly wide and bright in the darkness. His breath grew raggedy and shallow. He thought of her often when the forest grew dark and he found himself cosily alone. But not like this. No, this was different. With his heart beating heavy for another reason and paired with an uneasiness that crawled just beneath the surface of his thin skin. The air around him grew chill and the dank foliage carpet he lay upon shrivelled away into nothing but cold damp soil, he could not control it. He felt both cold and hot and far from himself. His head heavy and filled with too much… too much… fear. It was fear. The sudden awareness of what he was feeling made it all the more worse. Etojo rolled from his side with a lurch and rose stiffly from his haunches. What remained of the forest foliage creaked and snapped in protest but all he could hear was the pounding of his own pulse overwhelming his ears. He did not know where he was going or how long it would take to get there. Perhaps he never would but he would try. He did not know that it was already too late… far, far too late. Did not know or understand the sorrow or the emptiness that would overcome him when he would search and search and never find her. All he did know was that she burned too real in his thoughts and that he was suddenly, inexplicably very afraid for her. Lucrezia, one friend of very few.

@[Shelbi]