I welcome the fire as I punish the love; any

[magnus]

I wanna give you wild love, the kind that never slows down
I wanna take you high up let our hearts be the only sound

Demons chase him tonight.

He feels them on his heels, biting his ankles, rising up his throat. It wakes him from a fitful slumber, turning gold eyes to the horizon. He doesn’t hesitate to shake the dust from his coat, finding the quietest way to the border. He does his best to look for those who call Tephra home, checking on those who find slumber in the open, angling his path wide to do a sweep of the border before pointing to the path that takes him to the forest. He recognizes the way that will take him to the field, but it is unlikely that any would be seeking company there in the dead of night and, truthfully, he wasn’t sure he was in a mindset to be proper company now. Not with nightmares swelling his chest and fury trailing closely behind it.

It wasn’t fair to have to fight these fights every evening.

It wasn’t fair to see the mirage of their faces shimmering before him.

It wasn’t fair.

He wants to slam fists against table, against jaw. He wants to taste the copper in the back of his mouth, the split of flesh and cracking of bone a welcome symphony to a world made chaotic in silence. 

Instead, he grunts and pushes off the summer soil, his body welcoming the ache of any physical exertion.

He doesn’t bother to pace himself. He doesn’t bother to pay mind to the path before him. He trusts in his own instincts to guide him as he enters into the thickest parts of the forest, the trees reminding him of the thick vegetation that he called home in the jungle. He is surefooted as he races through them, the mulch and the leaves crackling behind the worn edges of his hooves, his path only illuminated by the milky light of the moon as it splatters through the leaves. His breathing is rhythmic, nostrils flaring pink against the inky of his nose, the sound of leg striking ground steady in the relative quiet of the forest.

He’s not sure how long he runs.

He’s not sure how long he’s alone.

He just knows when he stops, finally, his coat has darkened to crushed gold, his lungs burn, his legs ache, and the demons—the ghosts of his past—still catch up to him and he can only hang his head and sigh.

I wanna go where the lights burn low and you're only mine

[Tyrna]

All too well she knows the feeling of demons. The apparitions that stare and claw and bite, waiting for the moment when your just broken enough to give them sport but not shatter under their weight. She knows the ghosts that lurk in the shadows, watching, always watching. She was a ghost, and a shadow, and a demon all at once. It's not hard to recognize a kindred spirit.

She weaves among the trees. They all start to blend together and she knows she's safest in the shadows. It's dark and for once, quiet. She is alone and welcomes it, relishing the cool summer breezes that whisper among the leaves, teasing the ghosts from their haunts. Tonight she is peaceful, until a stray ray of sunlight crashes through her path. Then she is running.

She chases the sun, lost in the sudden predators instinct that steals her breath and fuels her flight. She catches up to the stray gold that escaped the clutches of the moon and paces next to him, calming the beast inside her breast, reassuring herself that tonight she is safe. Tonight she is quiet. She is herself, for now at least.

The golden man that crashed through the trees suddenly comes to a halt. It takes her a second to stop herself as well, gulping down air as the stranger sighs. She is herself, she is safe, she is quiet.

Moonlit eyes turn to the golden stranger, the kindred spirit, and wait for him to look at her. To see that demons are real, and aren't always unkind.

[magnus]

I wanna give you wild love, the kind that never slows down
I wanna take you high up let our hearts be the only sound

S He isn’t sure when the ghosts in his head take physical form—when the thunder of his past becomes the thud of hoof against ground—but he recognizes it instantly. His body, trained beyond the limits of his own talent, shifts almost imperceptibly, the prey within his heart recognizing the threat and teetering along the unnatural instinct of fight or flight. He wants to twist on his haunches and rocket toward her. He wants to find relief in the fight, teeth against hide and chest against chest. He wants to rip at something until copper floods his mouth. Until his body breaks. Until he is drunk on the pain of it.

Instead, he drops his head and levels out. His stride lengthens. His body flattens out as it eats the earth.

He doesn’t know what he’s running from.

He doesn’t know what he’s running toward.

He just recognizes, somewhere in the back of his mind, that it’s not truly a threat that sits just out of the corner of his vision. It’s not truly something that he should turn his fury toward, letting it roll across the forest like the edges of a storm across the bay.  So he consumes it. He draws it inward, letting the grey and the lightning clash into his throat and into his belly. It retreats as he runs, until he nearly implodes.

When he stops and it is silent, he feels it building again, the rumbling of it not yet defeated.

He can hear nothing except the dual beat of their breathing, the sound of paired inhale and exhale.

When he finally lifts his summer eyes to her, they scorch and he doesn’t bother to hide the raw pain that radiates. A muscle in his jaw jumps when he recognizes her as female, not weak, but not an opponent, not a target. For a second, the silence between them grows taut. For a second, he considers not breaking it.

Instead, he takes a forced breath.

Instead, he just says one word:

“Why?”

I wanna go where the lights burn low and you're only mine

[Tyrna]

She is shadow and moonlight. Haunted eyes and a wild heart. Predator trapped in the body of it's prey. Once she fought demons now she was one, after all, she had the scars to prove it. All to well she knows the rush of adrenaline, the wild craze that filled her to bursting with the need to fight, to hunt, to run. But there were some enemies that could not be fought, could not be out ran. There were ghosts and shadows, demons that followed everyone in Beqanna. Nobody walked away scotch free.

When he ran past her she had no choice but to follow. He was a burst of sunlight in the dark and misty places that she felt chained to. She lurked among the trees because there was no longer a place for her and her demon. It was hard to admit that she needed this stranger when she was so, so, alone.

Their breath mingles with the mist, bodies steaming after the wild dash amongst the trees and he asks her Why?

At first she isn't sure if it's meant for her or for the pain she sees unhidden in his eyes, and it takes her several gulps of the cool night air to respond. She matches his gaze, scorching heat met with blue ice.

"I don't know."

She doesn't, not really. She doesn't know how to tell him that she can't control herself sometimes when the wolf wants to play, or about the demons that drive her to the isolation of the woods. She can't tell this man that he was the answer to a question she wasn't aware of until they ran abreast in a frenzied, half crazed flight through the trees. So instead she says,

"I'm Tyrna, and I'm sorry."

[magnus]

I wanna give you wild love, the kind that never slows down
I wanna take you high up let our hearts be the only sound

Like recognizes like and it cleaves his breast in two.

Part of him grows frenzied on it, hungrier than before, teeth gnashing at the possibility that spreads before him—the feast before the famine, the need to destroy and howl with rage. The other quiets, stills in his breast, soothed by the balm of a companion. It leaves him suspended between the two, his neck still darkened to crushed gold, the delicate skin on his nose slick, his breathing steady but deep.

“Tyrna,” he repeats her name but not her apology, mulling over what she has to apologize for. Was she the one who placed such demons in his head? Was she the puppet master, pulling the strings of his agony for so many years? The answer is obviously no, but he wonders at the simplicity if the answer was yes.

How easy it would be to rage against just one enemy.

How glorious it would be to have a solid opponent, to be able to see what causes you pain.

But his life has never been so easy and he has no luck now so he just shakes his head, dismissing her apology as the unnecessary thing that it is. “There’s no reason to apologize,” he finally manages, his whiskey voice darker than usual, slightly strained with the physical exhaustion that creeps through his immortal bones. She is wild, he thinks, and he wonders what brews beneath the surface.

Does her heart thrash in her breast like his does in his own?

Does her mind spiral outward into the orbit of despair?

Does she know this unending pain, these ghosts that do not yield?

“I’m Magnus,” he offers, because it seems only fair that he returns her name with his own. The silence between them grows again and his muscles twitch for activity, despite the fact that they also ache with the exertion. It doesn’t matter. It has not eased the gnawing in his gut, the restlessness in his bones.

He has begun to wonder if anything ever would.

I wanna go where the lights burn low and you're only mine