The Clovenheart

Ashamin didn't expect her, either. How could he? She was a distant memory, a figment from a time when he was something else entirely. When Ashamin had met her he had been weak--afraid of the wolves in the woods and fiercely denying he needed assistance until it became impossible to do so.

Now, so much later, he was surprised to find that she actually existed. Phantom was someone Ashamin had not forgotten but thought that maybe he had dreamed. She had existed in passing, and though he remembered reaching forth to offer her his touch, he couldn't remember her touching him back. Had she passed through him, or never been there at all?

Her appearance again, now, either meant that she was real or he was haunted. The Clovenheart wasn't sure which possibility was more likely. He certainly had much to be haunted by, and perhaps the spectre of a figure from his past was some sort of emotional trigger, a reminder that he was no longer the innocent stag he'd once been. No, now he had killed, in some way at least, and he was stained with the blood of a god.

Phantom had never seen him like this; would she ever seem him as he had been, again? And if she did, he had to hold onto her. Ashamin's dark eyes grew wide and frenzied, and he chilled. His body was stuck, his figure frozen in something like fear. It was more desperation, though. If Phantom thought of him as that young colt, that warm thing, then he needed her by him. He needed someone who remembered the kindness that had once possessed him entirely, before it had been tarnished by the twin swords of rage and blood.

"I never thought I'd see you again," he said in awe when at last he could move his lips. And he didn't know why that was, why he had expected her to die out like the last vestiges of his innocence, but it was true. Perhaps he didn't think he deserved to.

He would have remained silent for longer, would have stared eternally, if not for Lochan. The little eye scraped his remaining antler along his bonded's flank, urging him to step forward, and so Ashamin did. He offered his cheek as before but felt strange--shy, as if her presence returned him to who he was. But no, it wasn't so. His voice was deeper, his pelt riddled with subtle and gaping scars alike.

"How have you fared, Phantom?" the Clovenheart asked then, if only because he knew not what else he could say.

""

ashamin, lochan, & rakt