Lunette Vuesain

I’ve got my love stuck in my head

"You'll do wonderful," Moonshadow said, and it brought with it a memory of a frozen lakeshore, of sticking her head into the dark, cold waters, snapping for fish. Of actually catching one of those elusive, silver-scaled shadows, its body a strange mixture of cold and clammy and warmth; life in her mouth. But most of all, it brought back the memory of Moonshadow's patient teaching, gentle encouraging, and pride when her pupil succeeded.


Much to her own surprise, it left her feeling a little better—not fit to accomplish anything in a hunt, but marginally less miserable. It wasn't enough to be called even a seed of courage, but it was something akin to it.


It did, also, make her want to run away even more, because it felt like pressure—accomplish, or I shall be disappointed. And she didn't know how to hunt. She didn't know how to say, your life is mine to take, and sink her fangs in, and, and, and—


Tagg gave the call, sounding the start of their little improvised hunt. Lunette's terror deepened with the rush of adrenaline, her veins flooding, her spirit trembling like she was the one hunted, and not the doe fleeing from her child. It struck a chord she didn't want to dwell on, or admit, not when.. they didn't depend on her, but when she had asked for this, and she had something to prove, but she wasn't sure, what, and, Moonshadow made the fawn turn around, come dashing in her direction...


It was so tempting to just melt back into the shadows, let the fawn run. Instead, she gagged on her own breath and shot up from her position, tail up, ears forward, sudden enough to startle the fawn without actually doing anything—it bleated, panicked, before collapsing on the spot. Lunette stared at it in confusion, not comprehending what she was seeing. Prey wasn't supposed to just..fold up..was it?


But, as she heard the desperate cries of its mother, and watched the fawn's wide, wild eyes, she knew what it was going through. She could relate. She wanted to fold up and die, too.


Lunette froze.

Lunette Vuesain

I’ve got my love stuck in my head

They were one and the same, the young girl and the young fawn—terrified girls in a world that was so much bigger than either of them could comprehend. The darkness swept in over them both. Lunette swallowed. The scope of her world had narrowed to just the two of them, Tagg forgotten, Moonshadow forgotten. There were only the two of them, and the potent fear linking them together.


“It’s okay, Lunette, you can do this!”


No, it's not okay. I can't do this. The round, chocolate eyes of the tiny deer stared back, mirroring her own. "Lunette dear, its okay," Moonshadow was saying next to her, a grim shadow above them both, even though she lowered herself slightly. The black woman gave her a way out. A free ticket to not be responsible, to crawl back into bed with her demons and pull the cover over her eyes. In the back of her mouth, she could already taste the fawn's blood, hot and warm and kind of salt-and-iron, but she couldn't find it in herself to put her teeth in its neck.


But if she didn't do it.. it would just get harder and harder. She'd starve. Everything she ate, with the exception of the occasional berries and roots, had once been alive—had once been afraid, just as she was always afraid. They had ran for their lives but they hadn't run fast enough; they had fought for themselves and their families, but they hadn't fought hard enough.


And every time she wanted to sink through the earth, to die on the spot because the weight of the world had already crushed her, no one came to kill her. No monster loomed from the shadows, and snapped its jaws shut on her neck, and gave her the easy way out she cried for. Lunette swallowed, and gazed at the fawn again. She could offer that mercy—a monster to kill her, to take her away from the fear she felt.


It seemed both backwards and acceptable. Slowly, the ice flaked off her stiff muscles, and she took the few steps forward, bent to touch her sharp teeth and warm mouth to the fawn's soft, soft fur. She felt like licking it, like comforting it, like saying something to it, but they shared no language other than terror.


With her eyes closed, Lunette plunged her teeth into its neck, through sinew and flesh and cartilage; her strong jaws drove deeper and deeper, through its windpipe, until the flow of blood became too weak, and the heart stopped in its chest. Silently, Lunette stepped back. It hadn't made a sound as it died. She didn't want to eat it. She wasn't hungry. She didn't care if she ever ate again. With a blank look in her eyes she wandered a few steps away, gazing absently in the direction of the Cove.


Once the adults had taken care of their meal—Lunette had little interest in it—the three of them picked their way back up the mountain, returning to their lakeside home.


She didn't even notice the blood drying on her jaws until much later.


[ The end. <3 ]