Totoka River 내가 바보같아서 바라볼 수 밖에만 없는 건 아마도

“I am not you.”
 
The ink-cloaked woman’s lip was reeled defensively over her fangs and she bore an expression of a wrinkled muzzle and harsh eyes. The ragged creature took a sudden step backward as the voice played through his mind once more. The instinct to run was climbing through his gut and reaching his chest with a vicious pounding. His eyes were cast to her warily and he could feel the fur along his back bristle with concern and confusion. Kierkegaard knew that he could turn and depart – that she would not follow him if he were to use the length of his limbs in a suitable manner and flee the scene. In the blue of her gaze, he saw a glimmer of Moth and felt a pang in his chest like an old war wound that had reopened. If he were to run away from Nathimmel, then he was just as the sunstone woman had painted him. Perhaps he was a coward after all, for his heart felt as though it housed very little courage… far less than he had imagined it would have at that age. The years had not been kind to him, but the great pallid brute had not been kind on them either. In a realistic light, he should not have made it as far as he had.
 
Taking her reaction as a command, the ghost turned to leave her – afraid that if he were to stay, it would damage her further. If the dark creature did not want him there, he had no reason to remain. She did not appear as though she could cause any real harm to him. If his intentions were malicious, he could have ripped her throat from her body and left it in the drizzling waters, but the ghost would never feel such a way for the dark wolfdog. He could not have harmed her if his survival depended on it. But he was wasted and losing time. The haggard creature had formed a fragile spine.
 
It seemed as though recognition had fallen on her features instead of hostility toward his presence. She lifted her tail in the waters in an apologetic nature. Moments later, she was rising from the pool where she had been resting to meet him halfway from where he stood. Her movements were labored and her body did not seem to obey her the way it had on the day of their first meeting.
 
His eyes fell on the wounds about her neck and his stomach lurched.
 
A beckoning glance from the sea-eyed spirit was permission enough for him to approach. His limbs were stiff still, and held his haggard frame in a locked position where he stood. The option to flee was still alive in his mind and he wished that he could extinguish that flame so that it no longer licked at his heart, but he did not know how. There was a typhoon of emotions that filled his body and shook his frame. Somehow, he could not prevent his eyes from straying to the marks along her form. They were trained there, watching each movement that she made, fighting the pain that she must have felt as she lowered her skull to the earth and requested that he move closer to her. If he had been a good man, he would have left the rage where he stood and moved to comfort her in any way that she might need. He would have abandoned all of the thoughts of revenge and murder that were forming in the twisted mesh of his mind. If he had been a good man, he would not have stood there with a burning gaze as she suffered.
 
But he was not a good man; he was a ragged burden.
 
Biting back the urges to run, the brute moved a single stiff paw toward her dark body and he felt his breath catch in his throat. Curse the recluse!. The anger that coursed through his veins was not entirely directed at the beast who had defiled her perfectly sculpted figure. It was a carefully crafted fury that he had compartmentalized to a disturbing degree – not only for the wicked and cruel of the world, but for himself.
 
Kierkegaard fought against it for that moment and slowly took the remaining steps until he could taste the brine on her coat and the scent that filled his nares was imprinted in his mind.
 
“How could this happen?”