11-05-2020, 10:09 PM
echis
“ I will love you until we run out of mornings. Then I will love you in the dark. ”
She has always been all bark and no bite. Even now, when she believes she is threatened, she can only hiss and bare her teeth. To actually bite someone or even spit venom in their direction is much too aggressive for her dove-soft heart. But luckily this stranger has no intention of bringing push to shove. She is quiet, observing in the theatrics that Echis gives until they both become still. A sigh of relief escapes the serpent girl.
She says she’s been alone for some time now, and she wants to reply and say she has as well. But that wouldn’t be honest, would it? Echis has been with her mother and her siblings, plus Atrox watching over them all as they slept. Perhaps she has only been lonely for a very long time. There is some unseen distance between them all and her, and that void is filled with ache and wanting - wanting to be held, to be safe. No matter how her mother tries, the feeling does not subside.
“I’m glad to meet you, Ruth,” she says with a smile that stretches easily across her small mouth. And it’s true, despite whatever darkness holds her. She is glad to meet anyone at all. “I’m Echis. Maybe we could be alone together.”
And then she steps a little closer to stand at her new friend’s side. Even if the night is full of rain and cold and emptiness, they can wait out this storm together. Maybe the dawn will hold some light for them both.