Sunbeam Lair you yes you

in the dark and hazy quiet of pre-dawn in the lair, stigmata actively battled with both the pull of an obsession and his powerlessness to stop it. he watched her in the way that god marvels over man; the way an artist admires their work, and wonders idly if they could duplicate or destroy it. but death, never far from his thoughts, invaded the beauty of the scene before him and he felt it did not fit. even in her tired strides there was grace. there was beauty. something everlasting and reincarnated again and again. something classic and unkillable - an idyllic light to be preserved and never disparaged.

and he felt like darkness; hungry and selfish; privately fearful of what he might do to the light or what it might do to him, but incapable still of withdrawing from the brightness. stigmata watched the willow wolf tuck in for the night, leaving herself bare for the basilisk's approach, and though a part of him wanted to leave her be, for the sake of them both, there was no apprehension to his stride when he finally drew close.

he paused every few feet to see if his coming had disturbed her, but as long as she remained still, the tungsten general would go as far as to sniff the guard hairs along her spine; closer than he was necessarily allowed.