Hushed Willows [m] But I keep crawling over you for now

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The days slid away from her. She slept; she woke; she slept again. Only once had she crawled from her den, overcome by desperate thirst, to gulp down mouthfuls of fresh snow that left her throat aching and her gums bloody. Then she'd fled back into the darkness.

Perhaps she should have died there.

But in her dreams Marina had seen the child again, her child, no longer smiling but weeping and crying out. As terrible as that sharktoothed smile had been, this was worse, and with sudden fearful clarity she knew that even if she bore a devil of the same make as the man who had done this to her, that devil would still be her own; loved deeply, as all of her children were.

So it was for her cursed child that she finally lifted herself when the haze of her season died, finally slipped from the makeshift den and left with it any hope of finding relief in death. She thought at first that she might find @Athens, but as the days wore on she began to doubt that he had waited for her. Marina passed by the ridge where they'd stayed, her path veering north as if guided by some old instinct.

The willow forest was a beautiful reprieve. A quiet place to mourn that nameless part of herself that she'd lost to the grasping ambitions of a stranger. For a few days, at least. Marina wandered, sniffing here and there, in search of a place to claim as her own for a night or two. At every sound she flinched; at every shift in the wind she stilled, testing the air.

he wonders if he held her too tight, in this wounded state.

a caged bird whose wings he had clipped. yet he lingered around here in hopes that bird might return — he had not expected that it actually would.

somehow, she seemed worse. whittled by time apart. he did not think so highly of himself to assume his absence had ruined her, but he wondered, of course. there are no words upon his tongue that might come out right. none of them would offer comfort or warmth that much he knew for certain.

instead he only offered a low sound that might be compared closest to a howl. yet it was not nearly as loud as such a thing. more mournful, too, perhaps.

where has she gone?

why did she return?

Ah, there he was, the gilded coward spun in fine gleaming lies; for all his faults, he was beautiful. Marina nearly recoiled from his beauty even so, disgusted more than comforted by it. It felt somehow like another false promise. She tried to smile at him and came up with a sad sort of grimace instead.

You seem surprised. I know - you're a fool and a liar, I've known it since we met. But you're no rapist, I guess. I shouldn't have left, She laughed, a cracking hysterical sound that shattered abruptly into a sob — and then she was crying, sinking to the ground, burying her face between her forelegs as if she might hide the broad cracks in her suddenly-bared soul; as if she might stem the tide of manic red draining through.