There's secrets you could tell--confidence of the motherfuckers you've earned, you could tell her on secrets both grand and high, and the quadrants that motherfucker holds dear. Secrets you could tell that are smaller but buried deeper in you; the spot where your throatstem meets your shoulder that shivers you to pieces when it's bitten soft and pale. The way trust and peace and a quiet voice and a steady motion to watch can have you hazed and purring as fast as a hand on your horns.
To say any of those now would be a stretch too far for overtures though, you think. You don't dive face-first in the main courses. Save those for later.
"I grew up at hive down in the manglegrove trees," you say, instead. "Me and Snakemom down under the roots. She was coming back in down the tunnel and something outside went and killed her like that, half in and half out, and jammed up in the only way out, so I couldn't make my way up to surface until she rotted. Figure all that time without not a whole motherfucking lot to eat might be the why and how I'm so motherfucking--" you shake out your spindly little limbs, the whole small and narrow length of you barely the size of a lowblood sweeps younger than you. "I mean I got out by conscription time, and it wasn't so bad. Prayed a lot. Slept a lot. Drank a lot. The wicked elixir sure does keep, if nothing else does, and I had water. So what the fuck else could a motherfucker want?"
Chayal takes that in. Sober and steady, like she's listening in on some talk of note, memorizing mission briefing, not listening in on your dumb wriggler stories. Rewards you for them, even, with a hand combing back through your hair, picking out the knots, scritching light at the flaky, aching, itching bases of your horns.
"I miss her, still," you admit, for how good that feels. It's easier to say, with her rubbing a thumb at chip and flake, like she could buff them out with just her hands. "...It's stupid. Wriggler bullshit."
"I'm glad she was good enough to miss," she says, finally, and then opens her mouth, and goes...unimportant.
You're starting to get better at catching it when she does that, after she's pulled it on you a couple times; still you have to fight yourself hard just to remember that you need to keep paying attention at her. Dizzying, to see her and feel her, a hand on one of your horns, a pair of dark eyes on yours, and hear her speaking, and find your attention wandering even motherfucking still.
"Ah-- That's most assuredly my bad, brother," says Chayal, and comes back to your mind, with a comforting squeeze of your horn and a tight, crooked angle to her mouth like it takes her an effort. "It escapes me, sometimes. Most especially when I'm--"
She flickers again, speaking words you can only just barely focus on. But focus on them you can, this time, for all you have to bend your pan hard to really hear.
Verato: Especially when she's...?
==> "--inflicted of unaccustomed motherfucking sentiment."
==> "--thinking on my wriggler days."
