Duck Lake dife a ap kontinye

There is a dell where the trees part and where a nameless girl ripples her lips across a lake of silver. Her head rises to address him. He does not linger in growing want; does not play the game of war and chase. They will both know why he has come. He is expected.

“Lady of the lake,” his whisper greets and he glides forward, scarcely more than a spill of ink.

The jackal does not reach for her, but measures in looks. She is young and deep red, like an allaying wound he would tend with his tongue. Her scent to him is this color, like the flesh and pulp of a wolf body without skin.

She is drawn in through lungs and exhaled between teeth when his lips part into smile. “So strong.”

He remarks on the burn that has led the likes of him to some mother’s daughter. Perhaps this wolf was soon to be some daughter’s mother, too, inferring by new marks left from a man who’d hunted her with his edges.

“What does it feel like, the heat?"  He holds her with wide eyes that do nothing to veil this fervor.