12/31/2024, 7:46 PM
She hadn't slept the entire time - an initial nap had eventually allowed Zora to rouse sometimes near dusk's descent across the land.
She most certainly had not moved, though, quite determined to let Dia get some proper rest. And just laying there, listening to them breathe, their body tucked into the valleys and hills of her own bones and flesh, had been a kind of rest that no sleep could truly replace.
She loved her. And Zora was loved in kind; not desired (although she was) and not coveted (although she was) and loved for all the masks she wore and the monster she was beneath.
Zora had killed and ruined everything she'd ever tried to build, but not even death had taken what she and Gladiator had away. Eventually, despite Zora's wants, sleep took her yet again. Morning's light was only a pale warmth on her dark fur, against the furnace that was Dia Zora was cuddled up to. She peeled a bleary eye open, one and then the other, to stare at their face. One cheek's fur was mushed out of shape, and dark dusky-rust underfur speckled her chin from Zora's pelt.
Bliss. That, she realized, was what this was, warm as sunlight, electric like a thunderstorm, bundled in Zora's chest. She was lucky she only had one lung - she wasn't sure she'd have room for it all otherwise.
The Mercer jerked back, burying their face in blonde paws.
I really said that, didn't I?
Zora's blood went cold, the sunlight in her chest blotted out by a cold front, her heart stuttering as it turned to ice. Old insecurities awoke within her, and Zora's mind was a cacophony of alarm and shame and quietly, quickly building rage to mask the sting of the pain.
She had assumed if there was going to be a 'morning-after regret' phase, it would have happened sometime while they were having sex - to think it had come after I love you was a kind of hurt that defied description. Childbirth had been easier, by far.
She dropped her gaze away, tucking her tail over her hind legs and one of her front paws curling demurely under her chest like a cat.
It doesn't have to mean anything.Zora lied, convincingly as she ever did - breathed some aspect of truth into it so it formed a heartbeat even when crafted out of malice and falsehood.
I know you had a hard day yesterday.
