jamie
He smiles.
And this time, it is not the same cheshire cat smile.
There is something predatory about it.
Something sharp. Dangerous.
Something that reeks of bad intentions.
Just a glimpse before it is gone and he is tilting his peculiar head and studying her. Still doesn’t trust himself to look at her too closely. He had not been exaggerating when he’d said it. But he finds it easier now. Perhaps he has built up some immunity to it. Even if only just a little.
“Go on, then,” he murmurs, raspy. And he moves before he gives her the chance to. Slinks closer. Reptilian somehow. Seamless in the way he closes up all the space between them. For a moment it’s almost as if he’ll dissolve, move around her, consume her.
But he doesn’t. Because he is as solid as a thing like him can be.
He is a horse, just as she is a horse.
But even this close there will be no scent. Nothing to remember him by.
When she touches him, she will come away knowing that she has touched him but it will leave no lasting effect. Because he is real, just as she is real. But he is almost intangible. Solid without being solid. Real without being real.
“Touch me,” he says. She will touch him and he will know that she has touched him but he won’t feel it either. Not really. Because he is so little more than a ghost without purpose or direction.