Nocturne Summit New Bohemia

Even Cicero had let himself go in the moment when he saw the immediate danger to his leg, one of his most precious possessions. Only when he threw himself to the ground defensively did Cicero realise how firmly his tail was tucked between hind legs, and he was disgusted with himself almost as much as he had been after he had seen the white wolf skulk off, completely ignoring him as though he was nothing. Pain coarsed through his leg above the other areas that she had hit. His neck felt sore, too, for the wounds that the white wolf had caused there had only just begun to heal; now they were torn asunder again, ironically by someone that he had wanted to give relief from similar events, he so imagined, as what had happened to him. Except perhaps without Sheogorath, without the demon inside. Except that it hadn't been her own damn fault that it had happened.

Cicero waited for more pain, but it did not come. He looked up, his tail relaxing as he realised that she was the only one there and she could not take that from him. And despite the pain — and actually, for a big part because of the pain — and the wounds and the danger, the thrill, the fact that he could've died out here, Cicero did not remember feeling so alive in a long time. He, too, felt overwhelmed and was not sure what to feel, because there was so much of it all at once.

He remained on the ground, perhaps because he was tired and in pain, perhaps because he was afraid of what his throbbing leg might do if he tried to get up. He looked up at her, at her face, and he hoped to see that it had helped, somehow. That he had helped. That she felt better, or, at the very least, that she felt alive and in control, like he did, in some ways. He looked at the blood that marred her face, unable to tell just how much it was because injuries in the face often looked worse than they really were.

A calm fell over him, the emotions tucked away again, and he felt as though he had driven Sheogorath away, if not for a moment. His thirst for pain and violence were gone. He just looked at her, his face unreadable, while he tried his best to read hers. Because she didn't deserve to feel this way. Because even though Cicero had only ever truly cared for Damien in all his life, somehow the absence of this girl's fear would mean that maybe some day he could walk dark corridors away from home without looking over his shoulder and sleeping with his tail tucked in a false sense of security.