Honeyed Pasture baby, come give me something new.

he drank in her words one by one, face twisting with sadness and sorrow, but never disgust. what had happened to her, what others had done to hurt her, it made his skin crawl with disapproval. what made it worse, was that she thought it was her fault. how...how could he let her know it wasn't?

she didn't have to go into detail for him to get the general idea of how it was they'd hurt her. if he had known, would he have treated her differently? would he have been more aware in the way he moved, in the way he touched. what if he had upset her with his intimacy before?

he sucked in a breath the same time as she, ears twitching as she went on to explain the way she felt. he wanted to help, to make her feel at ease. slowly, he shifted himself so that his forehead might rest against her own should she allowed it, desperately wanting to show her that he was not afraid. "you are not dirty" he repeated, and would do so again and again until she understood that none of this was her fault. she had offered to protect him once. he wanted to return the favor, even if it meant protecting her from herself.