i don’t wanna to take it out on you , take it out on you; but i do
Though it falls quietly from his lips, the way Björn speaks her name - every syllable tense and taught with pain and confusion that reflect the turmoil within the panicked mare – cuts through all the noise in her head that is driving her mad. Her racing heart, pounding like the drums of war. The cold words that had Björn had snapped earlier. The rush of her ragged breath howling like a storm in her ears. The words that she herself had just spoken, laced with anger and pain, hot like fire. She had burned them both.
Tigerlily. She snaps to attention, her body straightening, wide eyes fixed on him. Much as she wants to, Tigerlily cannot look away. She stands like a lamb before a wolf, paralysed by her own helplessness. It is only when the grullo looks away that his hold over her is broken.
She does not understand. All she knows of stallions is aggression and detachment. But here the grullo male stands, suffering because of her actions and words, and he does not strike reactively seeking to harm her out of anger or lust, nor does he coldly turn his back on her and walk away from her like she means nothing to him. He seems to have heard her words, but reacts in a way that Tigerlily cannot comprehend. It’s as though he does not hear a challenge in them, does not take the coldness of her demand to heart and obey without complaint. Here is one who is different from the monster who hounds her and the wolf that could never bring himself to love her. Instead of hearing an invitation to take her, or an excuse to leave her, he hovers in between, as though he’d heard the desperate cry for help under the sharp indifference. Tigerlily cannot fathom his motivations, but she certainly recognises the feeling that the look on his face betrays.
Her connection with Björn thus far has proved to be highly empathic, and this remains true. The pain she sees in his face becomes her pain. It stabs at her heart, savage and unrelenting, because even in her wild state, Tigerlily knows that she is the one hurting him. This truth is almost too much for her to bear. Perhaps it is some kind of subconscious self-preservation that spreads through her as she watches the Bear King turn to her, sees his mouth move, hears every word. Because it feels as though a coldness enters her very bones, covering over all her pain and leaving her feeling slow and tired,
so tired.
“I know nothing,” she rasps the borrowed words impassively, dazed and numb, swaying slightly as she gently shakes her head to try and clear it. Tigerlily tries to think, but the storm inside her left only wreckage behind, all sense cast away from her in panic like jetsam, all emotion shattered and drifting like flotsam.
“I don’t know why he was here,” Tigerlily continues quietly, but then her face creases in troubled thought as she realises that wasn’t quite correct. A recollection comes to her, of the four stallions standing close to one another, gathered to talk. And distantly, Tigerlily remembers the lilting tones of Björn filling the clearing behind her as she fled from the herd meeting, but try as she might, she cannot recall anything he announced to those gathered, and she lifts her guarded blue eyes to Björn’s face, desperately seeking answers.
“I don’t even know his name,” she whispers weakly, fresh tears welling up and blurring her vision. Fiercely, she blinks her despair away, feeling a tendril of fear wrap itself around her lungs, making it painful to breathe. Did she even want to know the name of her tormenter? Would it help her deal with the trauma that scarred her still, or would it only add to her terror, make the ghost that haunted her dreams that much more real?
Björn stands there and begs her to tell him why she is so afraid. And she wants to, oh how she wishes she could finally be free of this terrible burden she’s been carrying for most of her life. She’d never been able to speak of it to her brothers, even though they pleaded and pressured her give them a name, and an explanation. It had turned her savage back then, and they had given up on her. Tigerlily bit her tongue, but still the word forced their way out, all sharp edges – aggressive and defensive all at once, bitter and deeply fearful.
“I can’t -- I just can’t, okay.” A sob rattles her chest, but dies in her throat, as she turns, angling herself away from him but not quite turning her back on him completely. Turned just enough to hide her ugly, raw forelegs that were still sticky with blood, because why should he have to be forced to look upon the physical consequences of her foolishness? Every line of her body slackens with an all-consuming sense of defeat.
“You can’t fix it Björn,” she says huskily, her head hanging low. She closes her eyes against the fresh tears that come unbidden.
“It’s me, can’t you see that? It’s my fault, all of it.” Tigerlily’s shoulders tense and after a moment, with great effort, her head rises, and she turns her tragic blue gaze to him, her pale face crumpling in pain.
“I’m just broken, Björn. And I thought I could heal, but I was wrong.” A soft, sad sigh.
“But it doesn’t matter now. Please, go. The others need you.” Tigerlily drops her head again and turns back, so that if he does listen to her this time, at least she won’t see him disappearing into shadows among the leafy palms.
The gentle hiss of running water is what she chooses to focus on, afraid to lose herself to the chaos in her mind again. Eyes are closed, and ears are attentive to the stream, so she hears nothing else, and has no idea if Björn had left the clearing or if he still lingers nearby, but she pours her heart out, gently shaping it into an earnest apology.
“I’m so sorry, Björn. I never meant to hurt you.”
T I G E R L I L Y
it feels like i’m breaking down, watching my words cut you in two