The air thrums mauve around him, fluttering and pulsating—the heartbeat of some great, napping beast, submerged underneath a pristine waterline. The chittering of birdsong whirls in his head, becoming a panic, a harrowing tune; he feels the discarded petals fall across his back, down his side, his skin sensitive with some anticipation. She finally arrives, sliding from the shadow of some dew-laden bough; he looks at her, scowling venom into her eyes, for her appearance alone, prompt as it is, gives no satisfaction for him.

“Hush,” he spits; he paces something feverish, stalking the shore of pool, the tips of willow branches reaching down for him, caressing the madness bursting from his skin. “I did not ask for your words.” His words slip from his tongue, gravel in the back of his throat; a growl that rumbles and threatens to throttle that insolent purr of hers, that infuriating whine that taunts him, or beckons. He does not know which. He ponders this madness, the rage that her appearance has brought to him. He strives to remember—what was it that she has done to him, for him, that angers him so? Her transgressions slip from the eyes of his mind, pushed away by the allure of Birdsong matters; for this is the first season where he has breathed in the heat of springtime, the heat that so many other lesser creatures bask in, revel in, rejoice. He is oblivious to the absolute success of her gambit; he is ensnared by something.

I have something for you to do, he thinks, the words in his mouth forming, ready to be unleashed, to lace direction for his little spider bitch to dance about his whim. But he breathes it again, the springtime that threatens to clog his voice, his lungs with cotton—a gentle sort of suffocation. He grinds his teeth; the curve of her shoulder becomes apparent, the line of her back, straight and sturdy, sloping toward a well-formed quarter etched from obsidian. His head swims; his vision goes mauve and the world freckles with bloodspots. He is suffocating, after all.

“Come here,” are the words he says instead—whispers against the grain of his original intention, snarls against the bubbling, bubbling, bubbling of something that must be unleashed, something he must let loose, something that begs for freedom. His pacing ceases; suddenly he is beside her, teeth rushing for the poll of her neck, for he must touch her somehow; his body must be in proximity to hers, and he is not a gentle creature.



@[Jorogumo]
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