YOU'RE WALKING IN THE SHADOWS OF YOUR FEAR AND YOU'RE HEADED
FOR THE GALLOWS, SIN AROUND YOUR THROAT AND NO ONE'S NEAR
FOR THE GALLOWS, SIN AROUND YOUR THROAT AND NO ONE'S NEAR
He hadn’t been looking for it, but he tastes her anguish now.
It is spilling off of her and he breathes it in without having to try, it assaults every part of him and he wants nothing more than to drain her dry of it, to let it coat his tongue and fill his gut until he can’t take anymore. But there is nothing to savor in having hurt her like this; her sorrow tastes like poison, bitter and repulsive, and he nearly gags on it. It takes every ounce of his strength to not let it show on his face or in his eyes, to not let her see how she is drowning him because he is so afraid it will drive her away.
“I love you, Despoina,” he tells her but his voice is dull, because he recognizes how foolish it sounds. She has no reason to believe him, not after how he had hurt her again and again. “And if I could be different than I am, I swear I would be.” It is not lost on him that she is still beautiful even when she is furious, when she is showing those teeth that he is sure she would sink into him if she could. He would let her, if it meant she would have an ounce of peace. If she needed to avenge her own broken heart by leaving him dead, he would offer her his throat if it meant she would move on from him, from this.
“None of this has been a lie. Nothing that I have ever told you about caring about you, about wanting you to be mine — it has always been real. It will always be real.” He takes a step forward, the shadows of his body trying to twist toward her, but they are forced to be contained by his shape. “If I could change myself back into the man I was before that underground hellscape turned me into this, I would do it in a heartbeat, because I promise you, that Torryn would have never hurt you.” There is a desperate kind of energy to his voice, a frantic need to get her to understand, but the more he speaks the more it just sounds like stupid excuses. The Torryn that he speaks of doesn’t exist anymore.
“Shift,” it is nearly a command, but the sharpness in his tone is cracked, trembling like it is on the verge of caving in on itself. “Shift so that I can actually talk to you.” Beneath the roiling shadows his own beast is growling impatiently, begging to be let loose, but he refuses to unleash it on her.
It is spilling off of her and he breathes it in without having to try, it assaults every part of him and he wants nothing more than to drain her dry of it, to let it coat his tongue and fill his gut until he can’t take anymore. But there is nothing to savor in having hurt her like this; her sorrow tastes like poison, bitter and repulsive, and he nearly gags on it. It takes every ounce of his strength to not let it show on his face or in his eyes, to not let her see how she is drowning him because he is so afraid it will drive her away.
“I love you, Despoina,” he tells her but his voice is dull, because he recognizes how foolish it sounds. She has no reason to believe him, not after how he had hurt her again and again. “And if I could be different than I am, I swear I would be.” It is not lost on him that she is still beautiful even when she is furious, when she is showing those teeth that he is sure she would sink into him if she could. He would let her, if it meant she would have an ounce of peace. If she needed to avenge her own broken heart by leaving him dead, he would offer her his throat if it meant she would move on from him, from this.
“None of this has been a lie. Nothing that I have ever told you about caring about you, about wanting you to be mine — it has always been real. It will always be real.” He takes a step forward, the shadows of his body trying to twist toward her, but they are forced to be contained by his shape. “If I could change myself back into the man I was before that underground hellscape turned me into this, I would do it in a heartbeat, because I promise you, that Torryn would have never hurt you.” There is a desperate kind of energy to his voice, a frantic need to get her to understand, but the more he speaks the more it just sounds like stupid excuses. The Torryn that he speaks of doesn’t exist anymore.
“Shift,” it is nearly a command, but the sharpness in his tone is cracked, trembling like it is on the verge of caving in on itself. “Shift so that I can actually talk to you.” Beneath the roiling shadows his own beast is growling impatiently, begging to be let loose, but he refuses to unleash it on her.
T O R R Y N