quinn.

CW for language lol

He feels so wretched for yelling at her.

Quinn had waited too long, unable, he thought, to give Kipling what she wanted. What she deserved. She had given up on him, and rightfully so. He could be right for her. He could not even be good for her. Still, it had flayed him to watch her steel herself and turn from him on the beach.

He expected the pain to fade with the knowledge that this was better. He waited to be soothed, knowing that she would be better off without him, that he had made his bed with Nyimara and was doomed to lay in it, for better or worse. It wasn’t even that he hated Nyimara; he didn’t. He didn’t even dislike her. They made a good team, and they were good for each other, in the way that wolves scream and snarl to frenzy one another against their prey. Quinn and Nyimara frenzied each other; they fed on each other. They did horrible things to other people for each other and reveled in their deeds. He was addicted to it; he loved it.

But he loved Kipling more.

Quinn waited for that fact to release him from the torment of watching her spotted back retreat down the sand. He waited, and held himself back by the throat for fear of running to her and ruining her again and again. He waited for the comfort of doing the right thing and being a good person to soften and make bearable the pain, but it never fucking did, because Quinn was not a good fucking person.

He is a selfish creature, and he explodes into motion before the thing that he wants most in the world can leave his field of vision and slip from his grasp. He claws furiously at the sand, desperate to catch her, and nearly topples the both of them when he does. Quinn doesn’t want his fury with himself to bleed onto her, but he does not have the capacity to be gentle when his desperation not to lose her is overwhelming. He grasps for her neck and withers, attempting to bite into the base of her mane and keep her still, keep her here, not here in the Desert but here with him.

He grapples with her for a moment, unable to register if she’s actually fighting against him or not. Eventually he falls still, and his rough hold loosens, and he breathes heavily into her mane.

“Let’s go,” he says, and turns to the sea. “To the Falls.”

stallion. spanish mustang mutt. 15.3hh. smoky black overo.