There was a low thunder in his chest—a particular blend of terror and panic, like a stampede going through his veins, his mind, his lungs. Regret warred with disbelief. Memory warred with thought. What had he done—?

His pulse was light; fast, going at superspeed as it pounded against his chest (—her back). He hadn't wanted this.

He had never wanted this.

(Well, okay, maybe once. Once, in eleven years.)

And he had regretted that, too, in a way. It made his skin crawl. It made him feel alienated from himself—like he had caved in to some dark, depraved part of himself, chased dreams that were tasteless and bitter when caught. He had done things he had not genuinely wanted, things .. he had been floating in a blue dream, a blue stream, starlight and violets and tiger-stripes and the warmth of her back... What had she fed him? Gods, Irma had said it was safe—

Yet it felt like Lotus all over again. Affected. Twisted. Broken down past his own sanity, and thrust into a bestial darkness in which the emptiness sought to be filled with something tangible. As if .. being close .. taking her offer .. could've revealed the secrets of her knife-sharp eyes, and given him something he needed—lacked. Companionship in its most basic form, free of responsibility and consequence (hah), something so many seemed to enjoy, so readily—something so many seemed to crave, seek for, hunt for.

And Mauja simply stood in that storm, an ice titan, desiring not a single thing others desired. Time and again he had, stupidly, grasped for it, thinking perhaps something would've changed, that it would be good, or natural, or expected of him—thinking that, maybe this time, it would .. be something else than this blind panic, this disgust at himself for what he had done.

But no. He felt just as filthy, just as false, just as—he hesitated, not wanting to take the word in his mind, not wanting to touch it and apply it so (carelessly?) upon himself. It was a word worthy of true loathing, a word of suffering, and the last thing he wanted was to somehow .. make light of, or diminish, the worth of the word. Was his suffering worthy of it? Was it truly this despicable thing, if you had agreed to it—walked into it—and on the most base level of the physical, your body had, in some way, enjoyed it? And the last thing he wanted to do was to implicate that this tiger-mare had done something terrible and wrong, for if he had never said no, how could she ever have known of the despair niggling at the edges of his consciousness, the black dread growing inside his belly? Lotus—Lotus had.. she had done something wrong, hadn't she? She had known what her presence did, and used that, ruthlessly. But she, this warm body curled up next to his, had she known what those berries would do? What her touch would do—?

He didn't want her to know. Didn't think of what it meant if she had known. It would be easier if it was all his fault—

He felt filthy. Dirty. He wanted to rush into the pond nearby, roll in the muck on its floor, scour every last memory of last night from his body. Get rid of the filth. Of the scent. Of the memory. Of the way his mind reeled in panic, of—someone might ask him, 'but what was so bad about this?'.

And the bad thing is this: having done something, something so intimate, you did not truly want.

Mauja could dance around it in his mind all he wanted, but he could never truly escape the fact it was a particular kind of self-rape where the other party was oddly absent of guilt—for you coerced yourself, and they did not, not truly.

Not that that makes it better, or easier. It's just the way it is.

But she woke then, head lifting off the ground, and the petals stirred and shifted around them like something from a dream. And maybe it had been better if it had been a dream, a shared fantasy, instead of something physical that left traces like scents. Their eyes met, and he wondered what she saw—could she see his thoughts? If she saw his ..regret, at having done something he had not wanted, disgust at the very same thing—would she believe she the cause? Because the last thing he wanted was to blame her for his own ..stupidity, and so he schooled his face into silence, his eyes into a sort of blank amiability. She did not deserve his burdens and his guilt. She did not deserve to wake up with his problems, for they were his, and the blame was also his. He knew how these things ended up—so why was he never strong enough to prevent them?

She said she liked this place, and he hummed a wordless agreement, watching the petals fall in a storylike stillness that felt very much in tune with the dream-like state of the previous night—like something of the blue had lingered, distorting reality even when the morning light was bright. And maybe it would've been better if it had been like that, distorted, a dream, and he would've woken up in the safety of the Edge and its mist, away from the clash in his head—except it wasn't a clash because.. there was no resistance? Aside from the desire not to throw any blame on her it was a unified scream going through his existence.

You did it again, you fucked up again, you fucked yourself up again—

His head was pounding and his heart was bleeding and the light was beginning to be too bright, too harsh, judging, demanding, telling him how stupid he was, how miserable—

She said she was going to sleep some more, and with the weight of grief and guilt hanging on his head, he thought it sounded like a good idea. They were still lodged closed together, sharing warmth, but it was different now (right?). It wouldn't lead to anything. This didn't mean anything. She wouldn't come back and look for more because it meant nothing and he'd given no promises .. right? It would just have been this once, soon to be forgotten, eradicated, gone.

He hadn't owed her anything last night either—he had simply fallen into the depths of that dream, and while his mind had still struggled with the idea of it, his body had gone ahead (—because she had wanted it and after his unfortunate slip of tongue, he had felt obliged).

Like fixing her could fix him.

"Me too," he murmured, because he did not want to be awake with his problems right now. But some time later on, he would rise, gently, trying not to disturb her too much, and touch his muzzle to her poll as a way of saying farewell, before disappearing back into the world, hunched under the weight of his reckless self-abuse.

[ The woes of an asexual. #welcometomylife || @Maren || The end? <3 ]

lord, the demands you're making-
help the monster on two feet
walk him down the hall, repeat
and when he's strong enough to stand alone
you'll notice what big teeth . . .