tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us; any

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Alive? he might be dead for aught I know, With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain, And eyes squeezed shut ‘neath rusty mane; He is not dangerous in the way that most things are. He was dangerous in that way, once, but that was a very long time ago and that creature is long gone. No, here it is his desperation that makes him dangerous, the way he is weak and wanting, the way he does not know how to hold back, how to say no when he knows he should. It is a different kind of danger, insidious and odd. He wants to touch her again, because she is kind to him, because she looks into his eyes and does not flinch from them. He almost does just that, his head moves, a little jerk of a motion, but then he stops himself. He doesn’t know her. She isn’t his to know. Your kindness is wasted on me, he wants to tell her. But he doesn’t. Selfish, he wants her to stay. Wants this moment in the meadow to last. Her question surprises him, and he laughs, a little, a rusty sound in his throat. He isn’t used to laughing. “Well,” he says, smiling, “I’m no historian, and Beqanna herself has changed a lot. I don’t know much of the new kingdoms, but years back, there were other kingdoms. Alignments, of good and evil, though no one much aligned to such starkness. Kingdoms of solely men and solely women, as well. But then there was a reckoning, and many lost their magic, for awhile – and new kingdoms came. Some of those new kingdoms fell, but most have survived.” He pauses, considers. “The meadow, though, has mostly stayed the same. Home to nomads and others who don’t want the protection and structure of a kingdom.” He is close to her. Her eyes shine in a devastating way. He doesn’t notice this. He doesn’t. “What about you?” he asks, “were you born here? Or did you come from far away?” Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe; I never saw a brute I hated so; He must be wicked to deserve such pain.