What had only passed as mere hours seemed as if it was years. My mind is muddled still, if not a bit more clear, as we return back toward the grotto in silence. Both of us bear upon our bodies the marks of the wild cat, mine festering much more so with blood and swelling up around each gash. The motions of walking back to the caverns cause me great unease, each muscle in my chest and rear stretching and aching in protest of my constant movement. It is nothing I have not felt before, yet I have a feeling that these are deep enough to cause permanent scars to rise in their place once healed.

The slash across my chest is the deepest by far and hinders my speed, if anything else, as we near the end of our journey. By now the aftereffects of my rage have finally settled, my mind becoming a much clearer place, and the onset of my injuries takes me in full. With a pained growl my bloodied side grazes against the stone entrance to our side of the grotto, eyes cutting back to Malleah for an instant before returning to the inky darkness ahead. I remember the moments before the puma’s attack, of wanting to leave her and never return, to find some solace in the midst of my anguish. But another opportunity had presented itself.

All of my emotions had been extracted upon the dangerous cat in its moment of irrationality; my anger feeding into the adrenaline that allowed me to rip it to nothing but tatters of flesh and fur. Its blood still cloaked my obsidian coat in tones of darkened red, the remnants of such being left behind with every step I took through the stony vestibules of shadows.

The place in which I had remained so devotedly with Malleah now comes into view, the scraps of fur and bone remains foretelling of a predator’s residence here. There is very little light in this area, only the smallest openings through the ceiling allowing faint, clouded moonlight to filter through. I step through the beams of one of these openings to make it into the depths of our cave, my cave, so that I may ease myself into a reclined position. I attempt to keep my weight from my bleeding flank and yet no position will do it any good; so I lay with it facing upward to relieve it of any pressure at the very least.

Malleah remains at its entrance, which is fine by me, seeing as close contact would not exactly do either of us any good. I am conflicted in my feelings for her now, betrayal seething silently under the surface and yet that white hot passion still driving me to protect her, to care for her. And so I lay in solemnity as I watch her speak her words. ”I was gone,” I reiterate for her, pointing out the fact that I clearly wanted to get away. My voice is gravelly, slurping down the quarts of blood from the cat could not even rid me of the tiredness in my tone; as if I had already given up. But I know more so than Malleah that I could never truly do such a thing.

She requests, no… commands, a promise from me as her voice becomes stronger toward the end. I remain there in silence for the longest time, eyes of black and red simply staring at her with little to no emotion present within them. She is desperate, needy of me, yet I do not know why. It was clear that she did not honestly wish to build a life with me or to grant me my desires for creating progeny to carry my family’s legacy. ”We don’t share the same longings, Malleah. It will never work out in the end. Just let it go before you lose any more,” I answer her in baritone chords, my eyes falling away from her as resilience builds strong within me. ”You will never want offspring and I will always find someone else who does – it’s a torturous cycle for us both,” I attempt to convince her, though my words never lift into a timbre that may betray what bit of compassion I hold for her.