If I were paying attention I probably could’ve been clued in that he was kinda uncomfortable underneath me—I mean, I didn’t blame him, I had just sorta flopped my ass on top of him as soon as I was able, as fast as I was able with the least amount of muscle function necessary to move myself. But I still wasn’t even trying to pay attention to my surroundings; the warmth of his skin and the steady beating of his heart right against my ear and my neck and the whole piece of my body touching his was lulling me, pulling me back into that sinking sand of sleep while tucking me in with that velvety darkness the world pulsed with, studded with stars and other things.

But he was speaking; the cadence of his voice drew me out of the cocoon of drowsiness that I was so willing to fall into. Gradually something shifted in my mind, insistent that I should be awake for this—awake for him--and for the answers he was offering me, the answers I had needed so badly not too long ago (before I had fallen--).

Actually.. I don't know why it happened in the first place...

He spoke and his words meant more than just the timbre of his voice washing over me; little by little I was pulled farther from sleep as I digested his words and they forced my brain into processing them. It was more than I anticipated—so much more that I became aware of a buzzing sensation in my leg that told me I was laying on it wrong—and that I was laying on him wrong and since I wasn’t so sleepy anymore (or at least, drenched in sleepiness like I had been—) it was beginning to be uncomfortable (oh oops, sorry sorry sorry) so I kind of wiggled off his chest a bit so my shoulder wasn’t stabbing him in the side like it was, so that it was just my head leaning against him instead, propped by the defined lines of his shoulder blade.

But my mind was still reeling with his words. The Basin was going to make Midas 'pay for his ignorance--but how had he been ignorant? It was justice, some kind of vengeance, for the 'crimes committed against’.. well, myself, and the rest of the herd--but what kind of crimes had he committed? How long ago had he committed them? Were they real crimes or things my Ma had just sorta spewed from her mouth? (But Lee could remember them to, or maybe not, maybe he was just as taken is as the rest of them--)

She said my skill would be welcome, if I wanted to avenge my former herd.

Which herd had been his before?

He had been King before, hadn’t he?

More and more with every word he spoke, a totally new thing was being chipped away into being, a whole sculpture of bullshit that was presenting itself me.

It was ignorance--because I was suddenly aware of how little I actually knew about these types of things. All I had known was the Moon Goddess doing some weird shit and that, all of a sudden, we were at each other’s throats for who the hell knew what?

But there was deeper things to be considered; memories, past hurts, past wrongs, past—past, the past, the keyword here was the past and I knew nothing about it. I didn’t know anything about the history of the herds or who had held power or who was allied with who or who had previously fucked with who or who or who or what or when or where or why why why. I didn’t know jack shit and as I mulled over Lee’s words I was going cross-eyed because I was understanding that I hadn’t even known what I hadn’t known.

I still didn’t know what I didn’t know.

Was it even my place to call them “evil”? Was it my place to pass judgment on anyone if I didn’t even know them? (this motherfucker used to be a king—) And here I was trying to keep balance in a world I didn’t even know.

It was impossible.

His tone shifted though—I was brought out of the growing whirlwind of my thoughts by the darkness that had entered Lee’s voice, how his words fell from him like ice cycles falling from the ceiling, cleaving your eyes in their sockets.

I—my life—I'm desensitized to violence.

The bitterness was growing in him; I could feel it churn in his mouth, listen to him chewing on it even as he spat out a confession he had held stuck in his throat and mind for all this time. I moved like clockwork—it was automatic. He spoke and I sat up, my neck curling over his from where I sat on the ground—my muzzle buried in the muscle there, where I breathed him in, where I breathed into him--

I'm.. a tool. A sword. Someone grasps the hilt—my loyalty—and I answer the call.

“Lee—“

I don't think, I don't question, because.. because I'm just a thing, meant to be used.

”Lee—“

Because I'm soulless and empty unless given purpose and that always ends in violence—

“—Leos.”

It wasn’t even his name; I was realizing that now, this horrible epiphany that he was included in the shroud of shit I didn’t know. God but it felt like a bubble had been burst, like a veil I didn’t even know I had had been shredded by all this shit flinging around me, in the world, between the herds and the ribcage of this bastard I had my neck around. I don’t know what I don’t know but I’m still supposed to fix a world that’s fucked by default, at any rate, cuz that’s why I was born--

--a tool--

(As for why you are, you are one of the fortunate ones. Your purpose is written plainly--)

(--even though your mother was raped by a god--)

(-- I would not have created you out of folly or vanity.)

--and maybe he was just better at being a tool than I was--

I swallowed the shudder that coursed through me because there was still something icy in Lee’s eyes and that was a thing I knew, a thing I could grasp, something solid I could try and--

“I can tell you one thing right now,” I said in a low voice—speaking into his skin, where my lips rested, ”there ain’t a damn soul on this planet that told you to pull me away from the darkness.”

I spoke slowly—cautiously—my tone a deep, guttural thing, straight from the middle of me, cuz that’s what I was speaking with. “No one told you to follow me after Hototo’s death,” my words trailed in his fur, “No one told you to ask me what’s wrong tonight, when your eyes first laid on me.” Cuz that’s what he did, wasn’t it? But I had been crazed by despair to remember that, beside myself with the off chance that I might be losing him--

“…that all came from you, didn’t it?” I asked softly, treating him gentle, “So don’t call yourself soulless. It ain’t right. You can’t be empty either, cuz I’m feeling something right now. Right there, under your skin.” I nudged his neck a little. “Your heart’s still beating.”



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