Stone Circle blóði

@Jesus

she showed her where to stay.

she offered a small meal of a rabbit. feeling that it might be more befitting than the things that the large wolves around her ate. that she would understand their differences among those who also called kvarsheim home.

soon she would have to inform gunnar, but now was not the time.

now was a time to heal and settle. to form a bond in the soft underbelly of whatever this was.

ég á ekki algeng orð um þig. her voice a gentle whisper of awe. uncertain if the bear-touched woman slept within or if she had roused already.

This would be their place, then. Theirs, and no one else's. The red princess had marked it jealously, leaving traces of fur and scratch marks all around in warning to all who were not Bjarna. Stay away. Then she had settled inside to await the return of her pale mirror, the moon to her bleeding sun.
She came with offerings of death and tangled whispering words that the princess did not understand. All the same, she accepted the rabbit, tearing into it as if set to some tedious chore. After a moment she stopped and licked the blood from her muzzle. It is strange. To live we must learn to exhale violence with every breath, She muttered, half to herself and half to Bjarna. We are all killers, but does it count if we do it because we must? She pawed the sundered rabbit gently, as if it still lived and might feel the pain of her inspection. Then she crunched its skull between her teeth, and savored the flavor of its end, stealing glances at Bjarna for no reason other than to make certain she remained.

she watched with soft, sunken pale blue eyes.

pleased to see her eat, pleased to smell the scent of her around the den in fresh marks. it made the place feel less alone. it made bjarna feel less alone.

words passed between them, each spoke a different tongue.

she watched the cracking of the skull and saw only resourcefulness. thought of when she used to break off ribs from old carcasses. a thing lost to time.

need?

was she still hungry? perhaps tired, maybe thirsty.

Yes, yes, of course you are right, The princess agreed quickly, nodding. It is necessity. But why? These questions plagued her incessantly. Questions that felt as if they might never be answered. There would never be an explanation good enough, whole enough to fit the empty space the girl saw in life and its meaning.
What are we, Bjarna? What are we meant for? To hurt, to kill, to bleed. The princess did not want that, but she knew that it wanted her. Felt it, every moment. What if she hurt Bjarna? She imagined how that might feel for a moment, how it might look. Blood in her lovely pale fur, the sounds of pain in her throat. She imagined her tears, and reached out abruptly with blood-flecked muzzle to touch her. The contact was gentle, but only because she forced it to be so, as if to chase away the imagined violence. She did not want to hurt Bjarna.
So why did she picture it in such detail?

yes, yes.

what did she need? bjarna too reached out now but it was with a firmer greediness now. if they shared a space, if they seemed so alike, then why refrain?

a soft thoughtful hum in the back of her throat. accidentally it sounded as if she considered the deep questions that had been poised.

she meant to ask now what the girl wished to do. then realized she had no thing to call her. so she pulled back to look at the face once more. the soft seafoam eyes and the masked face. the rich redness of the fur.

you, she spoke now in a hushed voice. a nose reached to softly touch the other girl. you sólarbjörn. far too long of a name! and yet — sól.

easier, perhaps.

me, bjarna. a paw to her own chest. you, sól. the paw gestured to the masked girl now.

she felt proud of herself in these moments.

In a moment, the princess was rewritten.
No longer ragged royalty; no longer Jesus or even Isas, that clumsy questioning infinitely sad girl who trailed a loveless Mother and watched the world pass her by.
Sólarbjörn.
Sól.
She closed her eyes and smiled. Sól, Repeated so softly. Bjarna and Sól. Sól opened her eyes then and kissed Bjarna shyly on the cheek, the first time she had ever dared such affection to another. It was the best thing she'd ever felt. It was peace. It was meaning. It was life, redefined in a way that might finally let her breathe.

she smiled wide and warm to see sól take to it so well.

and the kiss! her tail thumped softly and she offered one back upon the crimson crown.

yes. her voice gleamed a million tendrils of love and warmth in these moments. how easily endeared was she by those who cared for her own things.

us.

two systirs.

more than either might ever know.