Learned Behavior
By Suki
Pain dominates her senses. Inside her nose, suffocating. She inhales it with every breath. Still, she stumbles toward him, toward his shining figure, lined with a cobweb strand of moonlight. He gazes out over the lake. Turns slowly to show her his flowing profile.
She falls.
She falls but does not recall the harshness of ground. Instead, long arms come around her, gentle and firm. As the sharp points of pain prick behind her eyes and bleed into one another, she murmurs, half delirious, "Since when did I learn . . .." And then she swims in darkness.
When she blinks awake later, wrapped in warm skins and supported by a cushion of matted leaves, he does not rush her into consciousness. He sits silently near her a ways. When he feels she is ready, he asks, "What were going to say?"
She squints sleepily at him. "Say?"
"Before. When you fell."
Understanding whitely smoothes her features. Softly, shyly, "Since when did I learn to go toward you and not away?"
She peeks for a reaction. He is in his blank meditation.
Then, she sees his hand move, clawed, white, and large. "Would you rather I kill you? Right now?"
She swallows, more hurt than frightened. "N-no."
"Well, then. Don't complain."
Author's Note: Since people are ranging from extremely confused to falsely certain, I thought it worth mentioning that the there is no set pairing for the two anonymous characters in this fic. Who they are is up to you.