[open] don't let those butterflies out - any

[Wolfbane]

ALL THE DOUBT YOU'RE STANDING IN BETWEEN

Over the wind and faint sigh of the grass, Wolfbane can hear the steady thunder of Lilliana’s heartbeat and it unnerves him for a second or two. Since his rebirth he’d become so overly sensitive to everything that at first, the change in her pulse worried him. His steady blue smile broke and then re-formed once he realized that the unnatural pulse echoing in his upturned ears was that way because of him. Bane didn’t mean to be so intrusive. It just came naturally now.

He relaxed, breathing deeply and smelling the pungent odor of poaceae, or meadow grass, and with one breath he could tell which species it fell under due to the stems flowering from the season. Their pollen tasted like sweet, heady hops on the back of his tongue, accentuated by the chestnut’s particular scent. She wasn’t a Beqanna native, if he had to bet perhaps four or five, and healthy but not pregnant like so many of the mares lingering in the meadow around them.

That final realization made Wolfbane swallow and grimace. “Whoops, fuck.” He thought, trying hard to reorient the focus of his elite senses away from odors and back to the sound of her faint, hummingbird-like heart throbbing. That was the problem with thinking you were ready to engage with strangers right after a major, life-changing experience. Sometimes overconfidence could be a hindrance rather than a help.

“Taking a leap of faith, huh?” He asked rhetorically. “This a good place for that.” Bane chuckled.

“If you’re not in a rush we could start from square one.” Came a suggestion, like they’d been old friends long before this moment and Bane didn’t expect them not to be afterwards. “I’m called Wolfbane. Just ‘Bane’ if you really get to know me.” Her companion smiled again.

WITH WOUNDS THAT NO ONE ELSE HAS SEEN

WOLFBANE

@[lilliana]