GREEN
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2122 12.22 KB 118
2122 12.22 KB 118
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>A man should not be loath to share a bed with his beloved.
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>In 99% of relationships, such a stance can only arise from a guilty conscience or just plain old falling out of love.
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>And a relationship marred by those emotions will, without a doubt, crash and burn at some point in the future
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>It was quite fortunate, then, that your reluctance in particular arose from that small 1% of edge cases.
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‘Fortunate?’
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>Your mind, deprived of sleep and pain-addled though it was, couldn’t help but second guess that word choice as waves of fire alternatingly pulsed from your chest and midsection, radiating through your body like destructive vibrations threatening to shake you apart at the seams.
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>You braced yourself against the petrified bark wall of the hallway as your vision swam violently.
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>The soft blue light of a winter Griffonstone morning bled through the window at the hall’s end, deforming and flowing into disorienting patterns right before your eyes.
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‘Bled? Flowing?’
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>Still more lovely words.
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>Sucking in a deep, shaky breath, you were made suddenly and intimately aware of the thick scent of iron hanging in the air.
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>Try though you did to ignore it, the sensation of a warm, sticky liquid slowly trickling over the forearm currently pressed against your midriff jumped to the forefront of your mind.
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>You suddenly felt very lightheaded.
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>Were you a younger man, bright behind the eyes and blissfully unused to your current situation, you would have fainted then and there.
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>Probably sooner.
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>Your off hand clenched into a fist, fingernails digging determinedly into your palm.
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>’Fortunately’ for you, you were not a younger man.
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>It wasn’t your first rodeo.
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>An indignant scowl painted itself on your face as you cast your gaze upward, locking eyes on the door situated about two meters down and across the hall from you.
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>You grit your teeth and lifted a leg, swinging it forward and planting it back down onto the soft thatch floor with extreme care.
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>You winced, each stabilizing muscle that accompanied the movement sending a new burning lance straight through your torso, but you repeated the motion regardless.
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>Keeping your left arm braced against the far wall to ensure you didn’t topple over from a rogue bout of nausea or faintness, your delicate trek to the bathroom commenced, step by agonizing step.
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>Partially out of genuine concern but mostly to distract yourself from the pain, your thoughts briefly turned to rumination on the cause of your injuries.
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>Given the nature of your lover, who possessed no less than three means with which she could easily pierce your very soft human hide, assessing that element could actually be quite difficult.
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>At the very least, you could immediately rule out the usual light scratches and such brought about by lovemaking.
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>If not for the fact that you couldn’t recall rutting her the night before, then for the fact that they certainly weren’t supposed to hurt so much.
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>And to your recollection she hadn’t gone to bed mad, nor had you two gotten into a fight recently enough to justify a cheeky cut or two.
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>Besides, if she was acting maliciously, experience dictated that even SHE was reluctant to outright rend your flesh to such a degree as she had during the night.
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>So of course, you knew what the root cause had to be.
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>If you’d had any breath to spare, you would have let out a crestfallen sigh.
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>Night terror.
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>Damn it all.
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>How long since her last? Four months?
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>Just when you’d gotten comfortable enough to surrender the big spoon position to her, too.
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>At least it had been a ‘gripping’ episode instead of a ‘thrashing’ one.
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>The latter could get, well…
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>Messy.
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>An involuntary shudder ran up your spine as you reached a point directly across from the bathroom entrance, nearly panting from exhaustion despite only really having moved about six paces in total.
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>With a silent heave-ho, you pushed off the opposite wall and stumbled into the room, nearly tripping on the transition between thatch and stone flooring.
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>Your hands just managed to catch on the wash basin near the entrance, saving you from a fall and providing you with a new point upon which to lean.
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>Covered in cold sweat and entirely out of breath, you stared impassively into the crystal-clear water for a few moments before lifting your head and peering into the wall-mounted mirror in front of you.
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>You flinched as what looked like a ghoul’s eyes stared back at you, sunken, bloodshot and circled with dark rings several centimeters thick.
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>Worse still, even in the low light of the early morning - or perhaps because of it - your skin appeared several shades more pallid than it should have, nearly translucent.
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>You gulped involuntarily and stood up, shaking with terrified anticipation as the wounds that you had yet to lay eyes on revealed themselves in the mirror.
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>What was reflected as you rose to your full height did not immediately register to you as your own body, but rather the form of a lightly mangled cadaver.
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>The moment of disassociation passed, and you nearly vomited into the basin before you.
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---
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>One.
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>Two.
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>Three.
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>Four.
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>Five.
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>Six.
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>Through the mask formed by runny lines of crimson covering your torso, you could pick out exactly six jagged lines carved into your flesh.
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>Three running horizontally across your midsection, three running diagonally across your chest.
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>On closer inspection of the deep red gashes, you could make out the little yellow spheres of subcutaneous fat and sinewy latticework of muscle that should never be exposed to open air.
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>Unable to stop yourself, you lightly touched around the topmost cut on your abdomen, flinching slightly as your fingers came into contact with the sticky, half-coagulated blood coating the surface of your skin.
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>Your hand then pulled away as if autonomously, and you briefly regarded your now-scarlet fingers as if they belonged to someone else.
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>A cold shiver hit you in that very instant, and you suddenly felt very, very dizzy.
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>Too dizzy, in fact, to resist the second wave of acid rapidly rising up through your esophagus.
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>Resting your arms on the edges of the basin once more, you retched into the clear water, turning it a decidedly unpleasant shade of brownish-green.
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>Your torn abdominals screamed out in pain as they flexed to evacuate the contents of your stomach, blackness tugging at the edges of your vision and threatening to rip your shaky consciousness from you entirely.
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>This pull you resisted as best you could, using the pain of the ordeal plus the fear of drowning in your own sick as the anchoring points of your continued lucidity.
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>It was torturous.
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>Hellish, even.
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>But again, it wasn’t your first rodeo.
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>After what felt like an endless flow of vomit and a few dry-heaves, you finally collapsed to your knees, propping yourself against the crude stone shelf and otherwise letting the rest of your body go limp.
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>With a heavy groan, you turned around and slumped against the outcropping of the sink, gazing absently upward at the ceiling while struggling to manually bring your breathing under control.
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>Minutes dragged on, and with the initial shock of your injuries subsiding as your breaths became more even, the pain occupied less and less of your mental space.
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>Giving your mind free reign to wander where it pleased.
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>Including places you really didn’t like it going.
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“... This isn’t healthy.”
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>You muttered aloud with a sour hiss, as if the thought was a physical poison afflicting you as badly as your wounds.
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>You hated entertaining that line of thought.
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>Mostly because it was the truth.
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>Hurtful, ugly, and constantly gnawing at the back of your mind as most truths tended to.
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>Bottom line was, your relationship circumstances weren’t even close to what could pass for ‘healthy’, even by the rock-bottom standards of the place you called home.
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>In your case, the physical tax seemed to be rapidly approaching more than you could reasonably bear.
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>Setting aside the fact that Griffonstone wasn’t exactly the ideal environment for a human such as yourself to thrive in, your squishy pink form was at direct odds with the nature of your mate.
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>She and her kind were of almost universally rough and callous disposition, with an often unconscious tendency towards the violent route in most imaginable scenarios.
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>There was no way for you to survive in that kind of environment - that kind of romantic involvement - unscathed.
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>In contrast, her case seemed to be the opposite of yours, more or less; it was quite obvious that you had become something of an emotional drain on her.
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>She hid it well, of course.
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>You knew full well that her affection towards you hadn’t dulled in the slightest since you first met, and her fierce sense of loyalty had only grown stronger.
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>Prickly and mean under certain circumstances, sure, but that was just part of who she was and what had drawn you to her to begin with.
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>But under the surface, you could tell that she was also reaching the end of her rope.
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>It wasn’t that she’d become unpleasant to be around or anything like that, but..
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>She just seemed drained of energy all the time nowadays.
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>Mostly or completely lacking in the bravado, contentiousness, and cool enthusiasm you knew her for.
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>She smiled less, conversed less, got excited or hyped up less.
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>It was a depressing thing to see, and you were pretty certain of the cause.
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>You.
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>Rather, your… ‘lacking’ physical status.
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>Yes, your questionable suitability to the harsh culture of Griffonstone wasn’t just a sticking point for you, but (as near as you could tell, anyway) for your mate as well.
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>By the standards of your own species, your toughness was on a reasonably high level - mostly as a result of natural acclimatization over the past few years.
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>But by the standards of her species, you were a walking sack of viscera susceptible to being ripped open by nondescript passers-by on a whim.
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>Thus, you would inevitably suffer some variety of intense injury, and her emotional state would sink.
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>A grim, unsustainable death spiral that no relationship could realistically survive, let alone an interspecies one.
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>You shook your head, slapping your cheeks a few times as if to dispel the negative thoughts from your mind.
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>Thinking about dismal crap was well and good when you had free time to sulk, but the more immediate problem of your wounds would have to be attended to as soon as possible.
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>The pain having reduced to more of a dull, throbbing soreness, you were able to slowly push yourself back to your feet, albeit still needing to use the sink as a point of stability.
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>The pungent scent of the water-vomit concoction in the wash basin nearly made you hurl again, so with some effort you lifted the bowl and carried it over to the shower, unceremoniously dumping its contents down the drain.
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>You set it back on its pedestal and opened the faucet to begin refiling it, then once again turned your attention to the mirror.
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>The second glimpse you caught of your disheveled and bloodied figure sent an involuntary shudder through your body, briefly giving you a dissociative sensation all over again.
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>Blinking twice to clear the feeling away, you reached for the edge and pulled, opening the crude medicine cabinet behind it.
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>Your eyes darted around it, feeling relief as you marked and grabbed all the necessary equipment but getting a creeping sense of dread as the inevitability of your task became apparent.
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>Hydrogen peroxide.
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>Ibuprofen tablets.
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>Horsehair thread.
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>¼-circle suturing needle.
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>You closed your eyes and breathed in deep through your nose, exhaling slowly as you closed the cabinet and looked into the mirror again.
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>Your eyes narrowed into a steel glare and you wet a washcloth in the freshly-filled basin.
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>She shouldn’t be up and about for another couple of hours, so you at least had plenty of time to work.
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>You brought the towel up to the highest cut on your chest and took a careful, tentative dab at it.
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>Your teeth ground against each other as a cold shock spread throughout your nervous system, the icy water on your open wound feeling distinctly less than pleasant.
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>Still, without so much as an involuntary whimper of protest, you went in for a second.
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>The fact that you couldn’t avoid injury was already enough of a drain on your lover as it was.
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>So the least you could do was bear the pain without complaint.
by LmonE6
by LmonE6
by LmonE6
by LmonE6
by LmonE6