Sochi;

[sochi]

sochi

‘Mine,’ he had said.

Before then, Sochi had never really put much thought into a traditional romantic arrangement. She had assumed, rather that it was not for her—that she was never meant to be simply tied to one other soul. It had never been anything that caused her much grief or concern. Never anything that kept her awake at night and even after meeting Castile, after knowing him, she had never worried over the future of it.

But then he had said ‘mine’ and the gravity of her life had shifted.

So she has no way of knowing, or truly understanding, the twisting of her gut that something is wrong. She has no way of putting a name on the word for it—the otherness that scratches at the back of her neck, that tells her something fundamental about the life that she knows has changed. It leaves her restless and volatile and rash. She leaves Loess more often for hunts that never satisfy. She fights strangers and comes home bloody, choosing to let her body heal slowly instead of accelerating it like she knows she could.

She seeks relief in the life of a predator because it what she understands.

And when he does come for her again, she is still. Her silver eyes are mercurial and sharp, flashing to the sight of him airborne again. He pulls her close and she doesn’t actively fight it, but she does stiffen as the wind catches his hair—as something in the back of her mind clicks. It’s like a gravity of its own, this knowing, this thought that begins to form—and to her own surprise, she feels something shift within her, something cold and heavy and unmovable. She pulls inward, leaving nothing but a bland exterior.

She lets him continue to talk, listening with half an ear and perking up only slightly when her daughter is mentioned. But Reia has long since become grown and Sochi knows that the girl has no need for her mother anymore. Perhaps she never did. In these ways, her daughter is more like her than she will ever know. She is silent for several more minutes then, breathing lightly and evenly before she lifts her neutral gaze to find his own. There is no heat to it, no suspicion or fury. Just a slight angle to her head.

“It does seem much is happening,” she finally says, echoing his words in her own low rasp.

And then, in the same even voice, she continues, “You smell different. Isn’t that odd?”

well, I can try to get you closer but I know you’d break your neck just to see the stars
and if we don’t dare to hold it then this reckless wandering love was never ours

@[Castile]