Ainaz... It was the voice that haunted my dreams, my name droned in low, melodic, menacing tones. I wasn't certain if he had ever actually said my name, but he hummed it often in my nightmares, murmuring it like a particularly malevolent shadow, invisibly stalking me as I stumbled through the Falls, half-desperate to escape, half-desperate to find him.

The skin along my back prickled and the step I'd been about to take faltered as I dragged in a shaky breath, my fluted ears twisting toward the sound of the voice. I braced myself for the attack that I knew would come: the impact of his shoulder against mine to push me home, the blunt pinch of his teeth on my skin as he reminded me of who I belonged to. When nothing of the sort reached me, I turned toward him, wide-eyed and stared.

Gods, I wished I did not feel this way. I knew he was a monster, to the very depths of my core, and yet looking at him took my breath away. He was an infuriating, mean creature that continually prevented me from leaving the swampy prison Leif had shoved me in so long ago, and yet he was half the reason I ran away each time.

It was the only time I knew his eyes would be on me, and this time, his were the only eyes on me.

To my surprise, he did not follow me to where I was, as if taunting me with the taste of freedom that might yet lay over the dunes now at my back. Distantly, I was aware of this, but presently I was focused on the way he was looking at me, as if he could see right through me to whatever meek, weak-willed thing lay at the heart of me.

This isn't the time, he murmured and I could feel my brow furrow in confusion. Not the time? If not now, when? If not when I craved him, when? "Why not?" I answered defiantly, summoning the same indignant confidence I'd wielded at our first meeting.

My skin twitched incessantly, my thoughts torn. Behind me was a way out - metaphorically of course - but ahead of me was what I'd spent long nights dreaming and dreading in equal measure. What he'd done to me - the scars he'd left behind - should make me sick, and yet... And yet they didn't. I knew now that I could weather his violence. His worst. His cruelty. I was strong enough to stand with him, and though that was a small consolation in the grand scheme of the world, it was something.

It was the only thing I could claim as my own as a trinket.

And it was not even mine to have. He'd chosen Druna, not me.

"You cannot ignore me forever, Garmr." I said, attempting to inject strength into my voice, though it wavered as I spoke again. "You have to choose." A forehoof lifted, hovered, and then settled a half stride nearer to him than it had been before, as wobbly as a newborn foal.

Silence stretched and then I said the words swirling in my mind, despite fearing how he would answer. "Do you want me, or not?"