Time Together, Time Apart Pt. 03

Fight it.

He told himself that, over and over again, but it was harder and harder to not look at the others in the streets, the zebra and the stoat and the kangaroo and the field mouse, as if they were food.

"Sir, are you okay?"

It was mocking that they were able to ask him if he was okay, though Sandor should not have snarled in response, even if it was a tiny one, lips barely even pulling back from his teeth. Why did they feel able to ask him if he was fine when Alyssa had practically been tossed out to fend for herself?

They muttered amongst themselves, backing away, though he swung his head slowly back and forth, his expression glazed over, eyes glassy. For he did not see them as they were, but as victims, beings that he could devour, that he could take the life from.

The streets... He thought to himself, lips moving even if the words did not come out of his mouth, thankfully, one tiny saving grace. They are full... Full of life-giving targets. So many bodies. So many beings. And they could all be mine...

"Let's leave, there's something wrong with that fox."

Yes... Even Sandor agreed with that, even if he didn't want to think that there was anything wrong with him. He didn't want to take into account that the devouring was there and tipping him in closer and closer to those innocent people, wanting to take the life from them, to feel their blood running between his jaws. Yet it was more than that, so much more, the need to absorb them, to take their life for their own. For there was a big part of him, the corruption in the devouring, that hissed at him that it was the only way that he could go forward, the only way that he could continue his life.

By absorbing that life force for his own.

"So many..." He moaned, finally giving words to the devouring, out loud. "So many life-giving bodies... So warm... I can feel you..."

No one heard him, ears twitching but otherwise ignoring the seemingly deranged fox in the streets. They did not care for him, for no one knew Sandor and they didn't know what he was going through, that it was something that he had to change, had to fix, or the world would take harm as a result. He still didn't know how far things could go, would go, but he knew that there was no other option for him.

One way or the other, he had to best the devouring.

He growled, straightening his back and shoving the urge right back down into its box, where it did not belong but where it needed to go. He couldn't lock it in a little box and slam a lid over the pit of the devouring for long, not forever, but he had to do it, because Alyssa needed him. And that was the most important thing of all.

Sandor exhaled softly, settling back into himself, even if he was still salivating, still looking at those around him as if he could latch onto them, take them, claim them, absorb them and their energy until there was nothing left of them at all. If he averted his eyes from them and focused on the lines of the plans under the ground, their networks of communication, walking slowly and steadily, out of the busiest part of the tourist area.

Further from the streets that he had explored and hunted through, for Alyssa, so far, there were greener areas, extending out not in the agricultural area that he had chased the ancient being into but into a grassier, richer area down close to the sea. The grass there was tough and yet soft underfoot, his boots smooshing lightly over it as he flattened it to the ground -- but it sprang back quickly, fighting the salty air and the winds that whipped in straight off the ocean.

Settling down into a cross-legged position under a tree with large, overreaching branches, the flowers pink and dotted with red, he ignored the devouring. If it got too bad for him, he reasoned with himself, he could use the pills that he had to recover himself, to come back to himself, before he lost control.

I've always got the pills, he reminded himself, sinking his roots into the ground, growing from his body, finding the network of plants. I can always use them and they will keep me under control. I am in control of myself and everything is okay. I will find a way to fix this, to make things go back to normal, with the ancient being, and...everything will be well again.

They may have been simple words, the kind of mantra that he had to repeat over and over to himself for it to be true, but sometimes it was those simplest of words that meant the most to him. Like saying "I love you" to Alyssa. It was such a simple little sentence and yet it carried so much weight to it, so much love, so much adoration, so many quiet evenings spent together and lustful nights too.

Therefore, those simple words had to mean a lot to him too, even if he was saying them to reassure himself.

Maybe it would work.

It had to work.

He was in control and he had to remain in control, to forget the life-giving beings back down in the city, away from him for the time being, to ignore that they could give so much power and energy from him. Sandor gulped, but that didn't help all that much, not as he drooled, slopping from his jaws, slavering down to the ground in thick, long ropes. He shook his head, splattering the drool, though he could not spare a moment of his attention for that and wiping it away, not when he was hunting for Alyssa.

The drool was messy, but he sought her, feeding into the system of the plants. They told him that there had been a doe-taur passing by them -- that way! That she had fled, that her hooves had beat and beat and beat the ground, leaving small indents in the sod of the earth. Ah, yes, they remembered her being there and they had been marked by her presence too.

With that, he stood and dusted himself off of drool, though some of it just smeared into his clothes, Sandor wrinkling his nose. It was not pleasant at all, though that did not mean that he could go back to the inn and their room to change his clothes. He needed to find her and, with the plants, he had an image in his mind, a sense of where she was.

And he had to find her.

In the back of his mind, the devouring swirled and hungered...

*

Alyssa sat on the ground, her legs folded under her. The hill looked out over the ocean, though was not close enough to the sea to be a dune, so there was still somewhat familiar soil under her. She wrapped her arms around her body, the darkness pulling at her, though she still had some ability to see in the dark: it was twilight and dawn that was the worst for her when it came to being able to see, forever the most dangerous time of day for a prey species.

She sobbed faintly, wondering just how long the tears were going to last. She should not have cried so, she knew that, but she didn't want to hold back her feelings any longer. She had hardly cried during all that time that Sandor had been away, honestly and truly, even denying herself her tears when she used the bath and dunked her head under the water to wash off her hair. Maybe it was time to listen to herself a little more, even if out there away from the city on a hill with the ocean breeze chilling her was not the place for such a revelation, truly, to come to her.

Alyssa parted her lips, shaking her head, the tears drying coldly on her cheeks. It was only the wind that helped them evaporate.

She had not known the other doe-taur, not at all, never seen her before, and yet...she had seemed to be able to hone in on the deepest, darkest parts of her psyche. Guinevere had known about all the things that would make her ache and would make her flee -- oh, she should not have left the inn! But the other deer-taur should never have been there either!

It was all so confusing... But was she really the unneeded one? Did Sandor...really not need her?

It was hard to say. It was too difficult for her to get into, even though she rocked back and forth lightly, trying to find any way at all that she could to soothe herself, her thoughts all over the place, whipping back and forth.

What if I've been holding him back for all this time?

If he doesn't need me...why does he keep me around?

Maybe there are ways that I could be serving him better?

Was I too harsh on him when he came back? But he still hasn't told me about what he was doing out there, for he wasn't studying all the time, not at the academy...

She gulped, the lump in her throat tighter and tighter, feeling like it was cutting off her ability to breathe. No, no... She had to breathe, had to keep breathing. Even if it was just for Sandor, for she wasn't so sure that she was worth even the luxury of breath even more.

How far she had fallen... Or maybe it was Alyssa who had thought that she had, somehow, ascended far beyond her station. She didn't want to be there, not out on her own, but wasn't it always Sandor looking after her? Even when he was away, he had sent so many things back to her of value to make sure that she was okay, that nothing bad would happen to her when he was gone. It made sense in hindsight, of course, just why he had sent her so many expensive things -- for she had had to sell a few of them. It only had made her wonder, once he had returned, whether Sandor had been planning to be away for even longer still.

"He doesn't need me," she whispered, only to herself. "Maybe I should just go away or be nothing more than a servant... We can build servant quarters onto the house, but that would be even more expense for me and I don't want that..."

She looked down on herself too much when she had taken so very long to build herself up again, though Alyssa didn't know why she had done that. Yes, she had had to stand on her own, but she was Sandor's assistant and she should not have taken such liberties.

"Maybe she was right about me, really right," she went on, the words those of another, merely repeated. "Guinevere, she got the measure of me, entirely and truly. I don't want to be like that, I don't want to break Sandor... I don't want to be the taur that she says I am."

She gulped, refusing to cry, yet again.

"Alyssa?"

She stiffened, though did not look around. She was too tired, bone-weary exhaustion laid into her bones, holding her down, weighing her in place.

Yet again...it was Sandor. Always her relying on him to find her, to come get her, to help her... It was all the same, the same old patterns coming together again and again.

"Alyssa, I was so worried about you," Sandor said, coming into her line of sight. "Alyssa, can you hear me? Are you okay? Here, let me check you..."

She pulled her wrist gently but firmly away from the fox, however, when he tried to take her hand in his. Maybe that was wrong of her, if she was no more, truly, than Sandor's assistant, but it was not right either for him to reassure her.

In her mind, she did not realise that everything that the deer-taur, Guinevere, had said to her had been a lie. But the ancient being had had her own ulterior motives in breaking Alyssa down, in twisting her and framing her to her own nefarious needs.

"Alyssa..."

Sandor's expression twisted a little as he knelt in front of her. He didn't try to touch her again, respecting her boundaries, though he couldn't keep the worry from brimming over from inside him. It even was enough to drown out and swelter the hunger, the devouring, crushing it in a moment.

"Alyssa, please..." He said gently, trying to surreptitiously check her over, but there was only so much of the doe-taur that he could see when she was lying on the ground in, what was for her, a sitting position. "Please, talk to me. What's wrong? Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?"

She gave him a look out of the corner of her eye, her chin tilted down to the ground as if she was not truly paying attention to him or her surroundings. Or maybe even a little too much attention?

"Everything is fine, thank you, for asking," she said, quietly and levelly. "Did you have a nice time in the city?"

Sandor gulped, ears folding back. He didn't like how calm and quiet she was, as if the real Alyssa had left her body. It would have been better, almost, if she had lashed back and out at him, if she had screamed and shouted. If she had done something to express the negative emotion that he was sure would have been perfectly reasonable if she had done any of that at all. It was not right to be so sweet and amenable all the time, even though he was impressed by and adored how kind and caring she was.

There was more to the doe-taur than merely being there for him, of course.

"Alyssa," he said, keeping his voice as soft and as gentle as he possibly could, holding his hands out before her, the palms facing upwards. "Please... Talk to me. I'm so worried about you, I want to know what's wrong. I'm sorry I disappeared."

Yet he could not say any more than that, or else he would have to reveal so much more, all about the devouring. He didn't want her to think any of that was her responsibility to fix or to look after him because of it -- as it was something that she had caused. For he knew more than a little about her, having been with her and around her for so many years, their friendship having grown into a relationship over time.

He knew her...but not all of her.

"Please..." He said when she did not respond, as if she had mentally changed where she saw herself in his life. "Alyssa, I know I've given you no reason to trust me, but I'm begging you, still, to please trust me. I'm sorry I left, I should have come back more quickly, I should have told you where I was going."

"Where were you?"

She said the words quietly, a tiny hint of accusation in her eyes. Sandor clamped his jaws shut.

Damn it. He couldn't answer that question.

"I..." How could he get around that question? He would tell her later, much later, when he had a cure for the devouring from the ancient being and everything was behind them. "I can't say. I had to talk to someone though and I promise I will tell you everything, soon."

She looked at him then, her heart still open to him. For it was not Sandor that Alyssa was bruised against but Guinevere, who had told her so many vile things, vicious things, who had dug into her insecurities and dragged them out into the light for intense, driving scrutiny.

"Soon?" She asked, swallowing lightly, though it did nothing to ease the pain in her throat, aching through her body. "You will tell me...what's been going on? Where you have been?"

He nodded earnestly and, that time, she did not pull away when he took her hands in his own.

"Yes, Alyssa! I promise... You've been so kind, so generous to me, so patient... I don't deserve any of this, but you are the love of my life and...I promise it will all make sense soon. I'm so sorry about everything."

He knew that he had had no choice, not really, for he'd had to try to find a cure, even if there were different ways in which he could have executed such a task. He could have told her what was going on, even if he did not trust that Alyssa would not take it all on herself. And, even then, he feared her fearing him. What if she looked at him with that sheen of terror in her eyes, muscles stiff and bunched up, shrinking away from him? All because of the devouring?

Sandor exhaled softly, his heartbeat racing. It would have been fair, very fair, for her to fear him, because of his urge to devour. She, after all, had been the first that he had looked at with that hunger in his eyes and his heart, let alone his stomach. Maybe because she was the closest one to him, that they had spent so much time together... But there was only so much that he could let his mind run away with there, considering that it was all unknown territory. One day, he would write about the devouring, when he had some mental distance from it and no longer had to concern himself with any fears from his love or even himself.

"You ghosted me twice," she said, though the words did not feel as if they should have been ones coming from her lips, feeling his hands in her own, even though they were cold. "You left me...twice. Will you leave me again? Sandor, I cannot figure you out. Maybe this is it, maybe things are changing between us. Maybe we need to think about things..."

"No!"

Sandor pulled away from her, which, in retrospect, he really should not have done. Alyssa looked at him as if that had been what she'd expected all along, for him to pull back and to pull away, thinking that, perhaps, the fox was already setting things up for them to be separated, for their relationship to either change or break.

It was going to change, but never in a way that Alyssa could have expected or anticipated.

"I don't ever want to be without you, Alyssa," he said vehemently, sliding his paw, laying it flat, sideways through the air. "I mean that, I really do. Being without you was hell and I want to be with you. It's that simple, but I think I'm a simple fox sometimes, I don't need silly things, extravagant things, just you, a place to call home with you."

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, for he had grabbed one thing from their room and luggage before leaving, tucked into his pocket. It was a wonder that the scroll even remained in there and, truly, he did not know why he had not done what he was about to do before. It had never made sense, romantically, but he had known too that he had to do something with it to protect Alyssa. For, while he had that scroll, the doe-taur was under his protection.

She would forever remain under his protection too, for as long as he was alive and around, Sandor vowed it. Just in a different way to before, a way that brought the two of them onto level footing once more, where they should have always been, truly.

"What are you doing, Sandor?"

She was a little suspicious, she could not fully keep that out of her voice, but her heart still warmed for him. Oh, she just wanted Sandor to tell her everything, to be able to give her everything that clouded her mind the clarity of beams of sunshine streaking straight through. She had always loved that, when light had broken through the clouds and illuminated the land, more often than not after a big storm, but she had not seen that for a while. Maybe because it was that very cloud that was following her around, day by day, still not knowing what had caused such an abrupt upheaval in her life, turning everything, even her love life, on its head.

"Here, Alyssa..."

He unrolled the scroll for her and Alyssa blinked, her eyes adjusting to reading it in the darkness. Even though she could read in mostly dark areas, it was still more difficult for her.

"That's..." The doe-taur said slowly. "That's my indenture...of servitude. The ownership your family has over me."

Sandor shook his head.

"Yes and no."

She gulped, stilling suddenly.

"Are you..." She said quietly, so quiet that his ears twitched and the fox had to strain to hear her. "Are you going to...sell me? You can, I know... Yes... But..."

"What -- no! Alyssa!"

Sandor had to grab her that time, holding her tight to him, even though he wasn't sure if he was crossing a boundary with her in holding her so tightly against him that she seemed to shudder and gasp for breath.

"No, no, no, my beautiful doe, no," he hissed through his teeth, trying not to let the overwhelming emotion crush him, for he had to be there with Alyssa too. "It's nothing like that, never like that... Oh, has that worry been on your mind too, I'm so sorry. I never meant for you to think of anything at all like that."

He had to explain it to her and quickly too.

"This is not logically owned by my family," he said, trying to explain clearly what he had uncovered. "Your...indenture..." It sounded like a dirty word in his maw and not the kind that he would like to say to Alyssa, at better times. "It is tied to this scroll, this scroll alone."