[mature] The veil of deception; Femur

[Longclaw]

Don't be afraid when the night wolves cry,
feast on their bones, suck the marrow dry.

For what seems like the hundredth time Longclaw glances over his shoulder. He’s not sure when the erratic behavior began, (was it the moment he told her the truth, or the moment he fed his impluses with her blood?) but it takes hold of him all the same now. A few paces forward and then with the snap of his neck his eyes are roving hungrily for her shape behind him. The ghost never disappears. The habit, however, gets old and soon begins to tire the elasticity in his shoulders. He’s more than likely one step away from a pounding headache before sensibility sharpens his mind and has him halting, waiting, for the cloudy girl to join him at his shoulder.

“I keep thinking that I’ll look back and you’ll be gone.” He mutters, partially irate at the fact that something like 'a mare leaving him' would be the cause of so much paranoia. “She’s not just some mare.” He thinks suddenly, watching her move while a mixture of tempestuous desire and fierce affection assault both his body and mind. The confliction of his wants and needs brings up an ancient feeling - Guilt.

So black a heart could never understand that emotion, but if there ever was a creature to sneak past the rotting mass in his chest, to peer beyond the cluttered web of lies and selfish mannerisms, it would be her; his ghost-girl. “And yet, here you stay.” The young man murmured ponderously with newfound reverence, aware that above all he had only told her the truth of his curse. She, hidden thing that she was, knew something of the secret his father had pushed upon him; knew it and chose him all the same. (She’d chosen death, he’d given her life … are they equal now or denying the inevitable?) 

Without ease he tears jade eyes from the pleasing openness of her face to stare with forlorn strife over the wide channel of seawater between the Field and Tephra. “If you truly have no fear …”  He lilts, absently, as if to give her one last moment to consider the choices she’s about to make. The blue devil knows what lies upon that shore, waiting for her: Ajatar, perhaps Marigold soon too. More of that sickness he wishes (and, oh! How sharply the wish penetrates his sad, shuddering heart now!) were not of his making. 

But this is him, this is his life now, for better or worse. Fate tempted him in the shape of someone he trusted, and fucked him in the form of a blue-white flame. Longclaw never had a choice, but he would die before he took that option away from her. 

For the millionth time, his head jerks back to search for her.

Longclaw

@[Femur]