flesh of the servant, willingly sacrificed
you will revive your master
blood of the enemy, forcibly taken
[size=3]you will resurrect your foe[/size]
His answer brought a sincere smile to her face. For so long, she’d felt entirely alone, friendless. She’d grown up being shown affection by her father (whom she no longer acknowledged) and moved to a place where affection was treated as taboo. She’d not even been allowed to show her cousins any sort of affection, and the few times she’d slipped, she had been reminded that it was not acceptable. So she’d learned to keep everything bottled up inside, hiding it from everyone, hiding herself from the world. It sometimes weighed heavy on her because she had to constantly put forth the ‘hard ass bitch’ face, never allowing anyone else to see what really lay beneath that cold, hard exterior.
The few and far between times when she had actually thought she had been on the verge of friendship with others, it had crumbled to the ground around her for one reason or another. After a while of dashed hopes, she had grown colder, nearly given up on the entire idea of being able to ever have a friend, a real friend, someone who would allow her to be her, to show her real self, to open up to and let that friend see the weakness beneath her harsh exterior. She had opened up so easily to Taltos, hid nothing from him in that moment of them lying together on the plush grass just the two of them. She trusted him, fully and completely, and just knew that he wouldn’t use her weakness against her. That was a rare thing, to be honest.
The scarred woman allowed her eyes to partially close at the feel of his warm breath against her ear. The whispered word brought a grateful smile to her muzzle as she turned her head to gaze upon him. “’Til death separate us and then some,” she responded. No, they had not just become mates for life in the sense of any sort of sexual relationship. It was much deeper than that, stronger than the bond between any mateship. They were bloodbound, lifelong companions. Never would she leave him behind in battle. Never would she turn her back on him for any reason. She would always be there for him, to talk to, to share joy and sadness with. And in turn, he would be there for her in the same ways.