sochi/laura pony;

[sochi]

there are wolves in my head and their howling
there was a garden of evil in the palm of my hand

The sickness has ebbed, it is not as powerful as it was the first day she had crawled from the beach, but it still flows through her. She can feel the blood at the edge of her mouth, the rattling in her lungs, the wounds that scrape at all the weakest parts of her. She can feel the way the tattoo on her chest still burns, the ragged claw marks crimson against the obsidian of her hide. She is stronger though, strong enough to stand and hold his gaze, her silver eyes not as dull as they once were, her limbs only barely trembling.

She doesn’t startle at his question, although her mind instantly goes back to the ocean floor. To the creature crawling toward her, the way the skin had sloughed off beneath her paws. To the way her mind had played it back—the monster’s face becoming that of a sweet mare, her throat bursting in her jaws.

“I have hunted,” she says simply at first, because that’s the truth. She’s felt the natural instinct rise in her, her body shedding and the tigress emerging. She’s hunted alone and together, taking on smaller prey and then challenging herself with big game. She’s felt the beauty and the power in it, thrashing about until the other body gave in, the life-force coating her tongue and slipping thick down her throat.

But there is more truth than that and although she hesitates, she doesn’t withhold it from him.

“I’ve also killed,” her smoky voice is steady, even though her heart shakes slightly at the memory. But his eyes are intense, smoldering, and she doesn’t have the strength to keep the truth from him. “At least I think I have.” She coughs, blood splattering the ground, staining the edges of her onyx mouth, but she doesn’t pay it much mind. The illness has been worse. She has felt worse. Blood will not undo her.

“I don’t remember.”

Her mind is a tricky thing, slippery and evasive, and in the throes of the sickness, she is not sure that she can trust what it tells her. Had she torn that body apart? Had it been a monster? She doesn’t know. She can’t recall. It turns to fog in her hands when she reaches for it and she can only shake her head slightly, frustrated by the way her own memories hide from her. Her blood-stained lips turn downward in the corners and she lifts her gaze to look past him, through him, before focusing again on his handsome face.

“I think some deserve to be killed.”

It’s harsh but she doesn’t shy from it, just finds his gaze and holds it.

“But I may not be the best judge of character. Not anymore.”

now I'm broken and bleeding, I’ll never find my way

S

OCHI

stranger in this land

@[Castile]

ohhh, i love it because now i get to incorporate the quest. <33