Again, the massive chocolate stallion stretches to touch her and her whole being condenses awareness to the point of part of her skin where their bodies meet. Her breathing stills to near nothing and her muscles clench in breathless anticipation of something that she cannot name. She cannot tell if she is afraid of harm or of his kindness, but her heart thunders in her ears either way. All too well she can picture his teeth parting to lay indents on the soft fur there, to draw blood from her battered body as easily as whatever or whoever had preceded this moment. The thought was offset but the dueling image of a soft caress, and of the way he might run his lips through the tangled strands of her mane again.
Neither happen, thankfully. His lips brush against her and retreat, pulling far enough away that he can speak to her again. The sureity in his voice, and the confidence in his words pull her gaze back to his face and she watches in silence as he shifts next to her. The heat from his body is warmer than anything else that she can compare it to and she leans against him gratefully, ducking her gaze away from his intense green to train it on the muscled slope of his shoulder. Against the steady thrum of his heart, she tried to calm herself, wanting to find some sort of mental solid ground to stave off this feeling of falling. Her fingers grasped only open air, and she clung harder to the only kind soul she could remember.
Burying her head against neck and turning away from the reality of pain and confusion, she murmured a soft plea into the small space she'd left between them. "Take me with you?"
Sonorae remembered everything of her first night at Rougaru's side. Perhaps it was because the echo chamber of her memories was empty save the ones she had obsessively collected since reawakening. She remembered the way the golden strands of his forelock had dragged slowly across his face, dragging her attention relentlessly to the shocking green of his eyes. She remembered the way her whole body had clenched each time that he'd deigned to touch her, and the way it had filled her with a mixed taste of fear and anticipation and hope. She remembered the steady thrum of his heart against her ears, and the way she wanted to bottle that quiet reminder that life went on.
Everything from before waking on the beach remained stubbornly blank. Even her dreams were whitewashed, faces of strangers scratched out, and landscapes so obscured by fog that she could not make them out. Mostly, her dreams were sad, although she could not put into words why she had woken this morning with a crushing weight of sorrow that she could not shake until she sought him out again.
Wordlessly she curled against his side, once again tucking her too-thin figure against him for warmth. The swim here had taken nearly all of the energy she'd managed to gather, and she still felt boneless. Nothing in the world seemed solid at the moment save the handsome stallion who had rescued her from the Crossing and she wasn't sure she was ready to let him go.
"Rougaru?" She questioned sleepily, her ears twitching back to listen to the cacophony of the birds. "Can I stay?"
Anxiously she falls silent, counting the rise and fall of his ribs in the breathless space between her question and his answer. She wasn't sure what she would do if he said no, or where she would go. The Crossing was the only thing she could think of, but even that seemed unappealing in comparison to the warmth of the chocolate stallion and his home.
