Like magnets his eyes come to her, big and brown and too much for her weak heart to ever cope with. Lakota loved too fiercely, too caustically, for him to survive her. She wanted to spare him, to scream at him to run until she was sure he'd never fall into the poison that was so much more than a title, a magical ability. Lakota was poison incarnate, and he was malleable, lovable, unprepared for the damage she could inflict. But his eyes were deep and warm, like the feeling of Ktulu curled around her withers, or her brother's soft accent, her grandmare's words of strength. He was too pure for her, and yet she ached for him to look at her for once. Not Ktulu. Not Phaedra. Just her. But Lakota had grown used to the hollow ring of abandonment, invisibility. She was not like Ktulu, who commanded attention and awe with her very breath. Nor was she like Phaedra, who turned eyes with her wit and beauty. Still, she could not force her body into motion, and when it did it merely collapsed beside him. She was weak, but she would allow herself to be for a few moments more.

Her name rings like silver bells on his tongue, a nickname truly, just as the affectionate name she'd given him in turn over the seasons of knowing him. A wispy smile stretched her coal lips, wishing to settle his sheepish embarrassment, any guilt he could feel for causing her to worry. "It's fine. It's my job to worry," she laughed quietly, trying to keep her emotions buoyant. Their meetings really had to stop starting or ending in tears. Lakota already distrusted her emotions, their recent betrayal of her was not appreciated in the least. So she resolutely did not follow her darker thoughts down their path, if not for herself then for Apollo.

A soft hum of understanding purred in her throat, and she stared out into the distance, watching the shafts of moonlight through the trees. "I understand," was all she said at first, quiet, perhaps even somber. Her mind was a warzone of grief and past memories. Alleo had often been able to sense the pattern of her mind, and would look at her with those sad, sad eyes and say, "Si portano senso di colpa inutili." She'd never bothered to correct him. "If there is ever anything I can do for you, Polly, you know you need only ask." Her sincerity was a beacon to guide him out of dangerous waters, a rope to cling to, as she had intended for it to sound all along. Hoping to break the serious mood a bit, she smiled lopsidedly. "Even if all you desire is something to knock you out," laughter curled like smoke around her words. Her poisons had many qualities. Nobody had asked her for that particular side effect, but it was an amusing notion.

Silence falls around them like dust and dusk and dead dreams, and she revels in all of it, until her bones desire to grow into the earth below and keep her rooted in the present moment forever. She does not allow herself to obey, uprooting herself with the burn of sorrow familiar and cold in her heart. Until he calls her back, begging her to stay. She hesitates, front half still lifted from the soil, before she breaks and allows her thin legs to lower her back down obediently. "Okay. Okay, I'll stay. So long as you want me, Apollo, I will always stay," she whispers at last, the violet of her eyes vibrant in the dark as they seek out his face. She tries to impart the real meaning behind her words on him. Because she had always known that she'd stick by him, run to his call, so long as he needed her.

Lakota wondered why it was she offered that to those she loved, as if she instinctively degraded herself into nothing more than a shield, a sharpened sword, a soldier at their side.

An ache starts in her heart as he claims to miss her. How could he miss her? She'd lived her life as a shadow, the only reason Ktulu had noticed her was because she'd taken up residence in the darkness cast from her own body. Lakota had become Ktulu's shadow. Apollo should never have noticed her, certainly not enough to miss her, but the prospect made her heart pound with uncertainty. "I have missed you as well, Polly," she murmured, ears twitching and falling sideways with embarrassment as she looked away. When she looked back, attempting to judge what he was feeling, she found him reaching out for her. Lakota didn't even think before leaning to embrace him in kind, their muzzles like a velvet kiss as they touched. Her heart pounded in her ears at his whispered utterance, and she curled closer to herself, every part of her screaming shyness. Would he judge her, for that weakness? Or would he, like Ktulu, understand that her spiny exterior was merely a deflective shield? "I am not much to miss," Lakota sputtered softly, not sure how to move forth with the situation.

@[Apollo]

Lakota

The Poisoner