Brethren
Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2013 12:09 pmHe could say, with some amount of honesty, that he came to Darkenhold only to tend to Airy Ann's gardens. To tend to the Lady herself, and that was not something that he thought about overmuch. Because while she had been steel, and he still saw her as such, she had become every bit a Lady. If there was one thing that Catch knew, he knew that hiding was useless, fruitless. She was no Elliot. Her steel seethed beneath the surface, like a roiling, white Wolf. It ate at her in the night. It was doubt in a Seamstress' words.
With every settling of his head in her lap, his brains gnawed at her skin.
He could say all these things entirely in truth, were he asked. But he came, often, for another reason entire.
Like a silver mist he crept into the stables, his hard fingers working the latch. The iron latch. It bit into his fingers, but he didn't care.
The stable was dim, by necessity. One could not have an open fire around such chaff and hay. But it hurt his heart, and his eyes, and he squinted against the dimness, forging ahead on the familiar, hard-packed earth.
"Hello," he'd say, shyly, to the restless black form within. He had his own loose-box, but Catch knew what little comfort that was. It would be trying for a horse, a real horse, to be unable to roll on the warm, summer grass, to have the feel of muscle rippling as they answered your ever call, for greater and greater speed, done in joy of running, in obedience to a rider. For the Thing that Hrimfax truly was, it would be a torture.
Catch came, when he could. Today he had brought a fat, dead rat, and he set his chin on the stable railing, holding the offering out to restless, foamed lips. As always, he felt his gorge rise. He felt the pull of him, the mad, reddened eyes, begging for the sun, for the wind. For sides to bulge and ripple and spread, spread, midnight-colors and fire. As always, Catch must resist.
Because he remembered what happens to Dragons in Myrkenwood.
The dragon's scream still, sometimes, cut across his dreams.
"I p-p-promise," he said, after his denial. He stretched his fingers, even as he knew they could not - must not - touch. They came close, so close, to those ember nostrils, so close that Catch could feel the energy of throbbing skin, and Hrimfax could feel the tantalize of flowers, of summer.
It would be enough for both of them. It had to. Catch sat, his rat within Hrimfax's reach, and told the horse of winds and fires and summer.
That was a thing he could do, for a brother.
With every settling of his head in her lap, his brains gnawed at her skin.
He could say all these things entirely in truth, were he asked. But he came, often, for another reason entire.
Like a silver mist he crept into the stables, his hard fingers working the latch. The iron latch. It bit into his fingers, but he didn't care.
The stable was dim, by necessity. One could not have an open fire around such chaff and hay. But it hurt his heart, and his eyes, and he squinted against the dimness, forging ahead on the familiar, hard-packed earth.
"Hello," he'd say, shyly, to the restless black form within. He had his own loose-box, but Catch knew what little comfort that was. It would be trying for a horse, a real horse, to be unable to roll on the warm, summer grass, to have the feel of muscle rippling as they answered your ever call, for greater and greater speed, done in joy of running, in obedience to a rider. For the Thing that Hrimfax truly was, it would be a torture.
Catch came, when he could. Today he had brought a fat, dead rat, and he set his chin on the stable railing, holding the offering out to restless, foamed lips. As always, he felt his gorge rise. He felt the pull of him, the mad, reddened eyes, begging for the sun, for the wind. For sides to bulge and ripple and spread, spread, midnight-colors and fire. As always, Catch must resist.
Because he remembered what happens to Dragons in Myrkenwood.
The dragon's scream still, sometimes, cut across his dreams.
"I p-p-promise," he said, after his denial. He stretched his fingers, even as he knew they could not - must not - touch. They came close, so close, to those ember nostrils, so close that Catch could feel the energy of throbbing skin, and Hrimfax could feel the tantalize of flowers, of summer.
It would be enough for both of them. It had to. Catch sat, his rat within Hrimfax's reach, and told the horse of winds and fires and summer.
That was a thing he could do, for a brother.