She could hear him. He was all that she could hear. She remembered the times when he called himself a monster, long before their escape, and still after they were safe. She had only seen him fight once, but that had been from afar and in a situation where the gore was nothing in comparison to the pain of what she thought was to come. He had come after her once, but that was different. That never struck her as monstrous: only desperate. Morta had never, ever, seen Nova as a monster. It was not that she couldn’t love a monster, but that he simply was not one. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. However, on days like this, the thought would creep into her mind.
She cried in a new hiding place every time, holding herself tight, keeping quiet as she could. If he heard her, he would kill her. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. There were no townspeople to save her anymore. The Masters had killed them a long time ago, and now Nova and Morta were alone. Usually, their isolation meant little. Nova preferred it, and Morta was adjusting. There was another town a few days away, but they’d only been once. She didn’t mind being alone with him... Except on what she had come to called his Rager Days. They were the days when Nova grew violent, became mindless, turned into the Rage drug addict he had been in the Pit.
The effects of the pill still coursed through him, and they built up and then the exploded out. There wasn’t a warning, there wasn’t a trigger. It just happened. He usually didn’t remember much of it when he came to, and Morta was always glad for it. More than once, she hadn’t gotten away from a fist or a hand or, worst of all, a tentacle fast enough. It had never been bad, and not yet been dealt to her face, but if he knew... Morta didn’t want him to know. He never needed to know. She was safe, if not a little worse for wear sometimes, and that she lived to be there to hold him afterward was all that mattered to Morta. She loved him. She loved him always, entirely, wholly, with everything she had and probably with things that were not quite hers. She loved him, no matter what.
Ripping and tearing and yelling and screaming, sounds that Morta had never before associated Nova with while they were in the Pit together, were ringing in her ears. His Rager Days were days of violence, of all the hatefulness he had bee through and survived. Not all of his scars were borne on his outside; more and more revealed themselves to be buried within. It was hours in, more than she could count on both her hands. She ached, was hungry and thirsty, but Morta wouldn’t let herself complain. What Nova went through was so much worse, and this time sounded worse than the most recent few proceeding.
More hours than that passed before complete quiet settled over the house. Though she hated to do it, Morta always waited in that silence before emerging. She had to keep herself safe for Nova’s sake. When it did finally seem safe, Morta slipped from her hiding place, a tiny nook of a crawlspace above an upstairs hallway. She tip-toed downstairs, looking for Nova. He could be anywhere, in any state. She would never say it out loud, but she was always afraid that he would still be Raging when she came looking for him. The soft moan she heard nearby caused the hairs on her arms and legs and the back of her neck to rise up, and she went cold. But, warm relief flooded quick through her and she flew quicksilver to where she now knew him to be.
He was hurt, as he always was after his Day. He was hurt in so many ways, inside and out. “Nova, darling, oh,” She was kneeling beside him, reaching to smooth his hair back. “Destek...” She wanted him to know that she was there, she had not left. It didn’t hurt anymore that he thought she would leave him. She understood his worries, even though she knew that she would never leave. “Here we are, darling, here we go.” She brought his head to her lap, trying to smile down at him, to show him that everything would be okay. After all, it would be. It had to be.
