I lunged away from Staryl. I don't even know how I got next to her. One moment I was going to get food, the next I was following her, the next I was watching her mother leave to go hunt, and then I was next to her and it was the best thing in my life. Even now, as I scramble to get away from her, my body rebels and tries to pull me closer. It does not succeed. I win. I always win, even again my own body. Even against my own heart.
Now, where did that thought come from? Watching Monkey and Liana make goo-goo eyes at each other must be corrupting me.
"Okay, I get it! You don't have to be sorry!" Staryl suddenly barks, and I realize I've been chanting, "Sorry, sorry, I'm sorry" over and over. Her eyes glitter strangely, and I find myself lost in them. "Really... I don't mind." Her voice snaps me back to reality for a moment and then I'm lost in that and I realize I'm leaning against her but I'm lost in the warmth of her scales and don't care—
No. No, I'm never lost. I have an excellent sense of direction, I think wryly as I spring away from her and flounder for the doorway. But her talon reaches for mine and I freeze the moment our scales touch. "I don't mind," she says again, one talon beneath mine and one on top. She tugs me gently closer to her. "It was nice."
No, no, it wasn't, it wasn't, what it she talking about, but she's tugged me close enough for our tails to touch and mine twines around hers, stupid traitor tail it is. But I can't seem to pull it away. Come on, Victory, pull away and leave and yell and don't touch but I want to touch JUST PULL AWAY, VICTORY, PULL AWAY PULL AWAY PULL AWAY
PULL away
Pull away
pull away.
Just pull away. But I can't, because I don't want to. This realization shocks me enough that I come back to myself and I can pull away. But this epiphany makes me not.
I've always hated epiphanies.
Slowly, much too slowly, I untangle myself from Staryl. She blinks, looking hurt, before something dawns in her expression. She reaches into the pouch around her neck and pulls out a folded piece of scroll. "Wait," she mutters. "Wait, just— just look. You owe me that much." Staryl starts to unfold the paper, but her words have sparked my fury once again, fury that drowns out any of the feeling that I was definitely not having.
"I don't owe you anything," I hissed at her with rage. "You stole me, tortured me, and tried to kill me, when that didn't work."Staryl looked me right in the eyes. And suddenly, everything clicked into place.The way the others of her tribe looked at her. The way she apologized to all the escapees in the healer's hut. My saviour's black cloak, that no RainWing or NightWing would need to camouflage, except for...
"No," I whispered. She said it anyways.
"But I'm also the one who saved you.
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