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An index claw tapped against the foggy quartz.

Nathair then bumped his skull against her cheek. “Can I touch it?”

I don’t know why he’s asking. He’s touched it before...Her lips parted when she realised that the only time Nathair had ever actually touched her soul directly was the very first time he took it from her.He’s only ever beckoned it out of me.

The day on the beach, and even now... both times her flaming self had floatedbehindhis knuckles.

Oh, Nathair.Her heart stuttered at what she thought that may mean.He doesn’t like touching any part of me without consent.Even this, and it only made her chest swell in tenderness for him to the point it panged and ached.

“Yes,” she stated, her voice clogging with emotion. She trusted him not to take it while she was still so unsure.

She slid it off from where it sat on her palm, and she moved her arm back to give him room. Her smile brightened when he went to envelop it from the side, only for her expression to fall as her soul flinched and stumbled away.

Blue shifted into his orbs, and he backed off.

Linh, pissy with her literal self, pushed it towards his palm with the back of her fingers. He didn’t move, as if not daring to, yet the moment its backside touched him, it clung to her fingers when she tried to slide away.

“Excuse me,” she bit out, before she picked it up and placed it in the middle of his big palm.

It froze, then curled into the protective position it’d emerged from her in.Stop being annoying,she mentally willed at it. She poked it in the arm.

Nathair released her left hand so he could rub at its form, trying to coax it out gently rather than abrasively like she had. Folding her arms, Linh laid her chin on them so she could watch, and a knowing smile curled her lips.

He’ll convince it.She trusted that, because he’d done the same thing with her.

He apparently had more patience. He also cared about what he was doing, made evident by the way he sheathed his claws like he didn’t want to damage it.

My soul looks just as confused as me.

Even when he managed to get it to hold his thumb with its tiny arms in a loose embrace, Linh noted the way it inquisitively moved its face between hers and his skull. It sat there with its feet crossed, and she noticed how it slowly settled as he rubbed its torso. Nathair brought it closer as he pressed against Linh’s back until her front was threatening to squish against the wall.

Looking over her shoulder, he inspected it more closely. Linh peeked from the corner of her eye to see his orbs had flared bright yellow in elation about being able to hold her fragile inner self.

Seeing him hold such a tiny but vital part of her felt so special. After last night, and then crying, Linh felt raw and emotional, and like her chest was on fire in the most tranquil of ways.

The water was just as soothing as having him at her back.

Her soul relaxed in his hold, allowing him to brush the back of his foreknuckle under its jaw, and Linh herself softened. She reached forward with her left hand so she could hold his wrist, wanting to touch him.

Maybe it was his strength pouring into her somehow, but she found her lips parting to speak... about things she didn’t want to.

“My whole life, I’ve seen so many happy people. Even though the world is full of evil, it felt like our village was a barrier from what lurked outside,” Linh started, while rubbing the pad of her thumb against the base of his pinkie, like he did to her soul’s torso. “When I was taken... I thought maybe things would work out fine, and we would end up like my parents, even if I hated him at first.”

She laid her chin on the quartz ground and then tilted her head so it partially lay on her outreaching arm.

“I wanted to believe that people weren’t truly horrible. I chose to have hope and be ignorant, biased, and naïve. I was so scared... that I just told myself to try to be kind and accepting, as I had no other choice.”

Her vision blurred as liquid welled, but her tears weren’t followed with heaves or hiccups. They didn’t feel like blood dripping and scratching at her eyes, but like the leak of her emotions she’d been bottling finally overspilling. They flowed but weren’t important.

She wished she’d stop crying, and that she didn’t feel like a mess all the time, but her heart and mind were so muddled she didn’t know how to swallow her own reality. Her life was like a bone she couldn’t gnaw through.

“I learned that first night that I was wrong. That people truly could have darkness inside them and could unleash it upon those undeserving. I was undeserving. I thought my kindness and acceptance of others with a warm heart would protect me from evil. I thought it wouldsaveme.”

Linh touched the point of Nathair’s claw. She stroked a part of him she knew to be dangerous and deadly. She petted a monster who could have been menacing and vile, and yet had been utterly wonderful to her.

“No part of me was safe. No matter what I said, did... no matter how I pleaded or cried, I only made things worse for myself. If I retaliated, I was met with harshness. I hate that I was forced to learn that if I didn’t fight, I wouldn’t feel pain, and yet that felt even... scarier.” She brushed her fingertip against the cheek of her soul. “But inside, I was boiling. I wanted to fight, to run. Every second of every day for two months, I was looking for a way out that wasn’t at the hands of death. When I first held a dagger, I considered killing to protect myself, but I thoughtif I did that, I’d lose myself. So much had been taken from me already, and I didn’t want who I really was stolen by a single thrust of a knife, even if it was deserved. I was shackled, but I managed to slowly pry the bolt out over time. I ran away twice.”

She lifted her eyes to Nathair, who had his serpent skull pointed at her soul, yet she could almost feel his gaze upon her. His orbs were bright crimson, but he didn’t quake with the fury she thought may be simmering beneath the surface.