speak

She screams at him, and he laughs. Her venom spits in his eyes and she curses the air he breathes with hellfire; and gleefully the amusement does come to him, because he knows the wisdom in his words by her angry outburst. For her anger comes from the wound he has twisted--the wince and the hurt is evident in the foreign oaths she shouts at him. True, her mouth runs intolerably once again--If only she would stop talking, he muses ruefully, and learn to listen-- he is glad in her reaction to his accusations. It only means he is right, as he knows he is--and he lets her unleash her spleen against him, uncaring for her words, for they mean nothing. Her faulty ego, her stubborn pride and fear--they mean nothing.

And so, as she lunges for him, he throws his head backward in reaction to her fantastic, grotesque speed. He does not try to escape--for he knows it's futile against her monstrous abilities; she has been made powerful by abomination. There is more to it, however. That black, sickly-looking horn of hers catches the hide of his chest, grasps his skin, traces a thin line there across the cavity of future brawn--it attacks him, ruins his flesh, causes his blood to bead, then trickle, then spill down his fur onto the ashen ground because he commanded it.

Go ahead and act like the disgusting creature you turned yourself into. He gave her his law--and she obeyed it. Something wild erupts in the colt's kiln of a soul, dangerous and erratically excited despite the pain of his wound.

He knows what she's for.

The wound of his chest is shallow--but it does not stop the pain or the fear of his beating heart. It pounds rapidly in his chest; the imminent pant catches in the back of his throat. He stares into the dead white of her eyes, and his own grey irises smile in knowing triumph. She can talk and talk and talk all she wants: her jargon is dead in the water. "Jo-ro-gu-mo," he tests underneath his breath; it is a foreign name like the strange tongue she speaks in, a cacophony of syllables that tie together in a clash of displeasing harmony: it suits her just fine. "You are done being the victim?" he asks her, louder this time, for she has run from him and his words are meant for her ears now, "Break from the chains of this disgusting form. You are done being left behind? Stop running away. You wish for me to burn?" His eyes widen once more, blazing again with the light of his restless, angry, voracious spirit, "Too late. I'm already on fire."

He takes a step back--his chest screams in protest. Blood oozes from his shallow cut. Black tar continues to cling to his face, framing his eyes, his luminous horn. "Don't listen if you don't care to, Jorogumo," he says, quieter, his voice disappearing in the wound, "Call me stupid--disappear in smoke. It doesn't matter. Blood does not lie, and I bleed red."

He turns; he's done with the fire and the gem-studded ash. He needs the cave. There is a spring there, and he will wash his cut. "Come on," he says to her. He does not request her presence; he does not ask of her obedience.

He commands it, for now he knows her.


@[Jorogumo]

(Selkie, whether or not Joro follows is up to you, of course ^^ But either way, Reggie OUT)