Luneshale Pass sion

She does not move away when he goes to touch her nose with his calloused palm. This strikes him as hard as a physical blow. No one tolerated being touched by him. Sometimes they let it be known that they thought him a leper. He lived with the tenuous awareness of being an aberrant thing, a soiled vector of degeneration, illness, and decline—but she only smiled at him, staring, each eye blue with reflected sky.

Yes, her nose is cold and wet—he had not imagined it. The nostrils flare softly against his calloused palm; they are so small he wonders how she can even breathe with them. And then the confirmation is over. He wipes his hand on the side of his neck.

Volition coalesces within the turgid channels of his brain. He stands up, looming over her now. It all sickens him. Why should he be treated with anything but disgust? Why shouldn't she flinch at his touch? Didn't she know? Didn't she see him?

When he lunges forward with a scream, rage is writ plainly across his face in all the languages of Earth, and more besides.