we are slaves to the sirens of the salty sea
He looks much as she had expected him to. He is dark, but it is more than that. He practically soaks in all possible light, until there is nothing but them. Nothing but the two of them and the rest of the world begins to fall away like petals from a rose. She finds it oddly pleasant, even though there are parts of her that thrill with the danger that he presents. The way that she straddles both curiosity and fear.
She glances down to see the darkness as it crawls toward her. Without hesitating, she leans her silver nose down toward it, expecting it to react like a living thing. She wonders if it will feel as tangible as him—would she be able to feel him at all?—or if it would be like all things of darkness: just mist.
“I know nothing of love,” her silvery voice responds, although there is no bitterness in it. “I have never known it.” Her parents did not love her, she knows. They did not even love each other. They had felt enough for her to give her the gift of adulthood to keep her safe, but not enough to give her a childhood.
And since then?
She has known possession with Ivar—a twisted sense of his lust that never overtook her in turn. She has known the detached care for her own children, but it reflects the same emotion that her parents give her.
But never love.
Not that.
His voice catches her though, the way it sounds so much more feebler than she would have expected. She wonders if disease riddles his veins. Would a creature like him even be able to get sick?
She cannot stop herself from taking a step toward him, the flowers in her mane blooming even more underneath the moon’s milky light. “And you? Have you known love?”
