feel the moon hit the blacktop; any

[Firen]

i don't eat i just devour,
every one in every hour

His indifference breaks her, and she shatters the world around them with a scream that rattles his bones.

As it all begins to crumble, as the flames are eaten by the endless void, he is reminded painfully of the time when, as a boy, Tephra had been turned into a living hell around him. For the briefest of moments, he remembers, starkly, vividly, painfully, all the rage and terror he had felt in the days after a band of strangers had destroyed his birthplace.  When he had been helplessly tossed through a portal to the other side of Beqanna, with no idea what had become of his twin or mother. As she unmakes him, he remembers the satisfaction of the attackers' thoughts, the flickering out of others as their consciousness left their bodies for the afterlife.

He had not forgotten their faces, he had not forgotten the unique way each of their minds moved.

There is something close to satisfaction in his heartless chest as she tears their world to shreds, as she takes his fire and wields it with more fury than he ever could. But then the ground falls away from where he sits he tries to stand, summoning his wings to him again, only to find that she holds him with her magic. He had not flinched in the face of her shifting and belittling examination of him. But at this, red eyes narrow; this display of power is what finally causes his blood to boil.

He is angry. He is powerless.

How real this made-up world feels as it spins and burns out of his control, he is a motionless passenger until he is nothing. He is a vapor in the dull stillness that the chaos settles into. 

In the silence, the ringing in his ears is deafening.

He doesn't know how much time passes, but as he realizes he is whole again and how and where he stands, his ears pin and black lips pull back to reveal the glint of his dull, equine teeth.

"Did it feel good,"  he asks as he steps away from the touch of her reparation. "To break something?"  

His eyes find hers, for the first time burning instead of flat, as he waits for what response she may have. But he is too exhausted to fight anymore, made weak by the burning in his veins, and longing to was the bitter taste of magic off his tongue with muddy river-water.

His eyes break from hers as his mouth lashes out to sinks his teeth into the scar-tissue across his chest, and his form begins to fade - his consciousness waking in the real world and leaving hers. He straddles the worlds for a moment, the Riverlands intruding on their dreamscape, and he slips back into the wolfish form of his sleeping body. But he looks to her one last time, with wet muzzle and steaming flanks, and his features grow empty and distance once again.

"Stay out of my dreams, witch." 

Firen