Cold - Day 2
@beatingthebabesbirthdaybash
Content warnings: implied SA
This one is mostly SFW, but some parts of the longer work are NSFW
Part 8/8
Antony was different from Mack. His pack seemed to change members more frequently, and though I’d never had any intention of learning names he didn’t seem to know some of them either.
In some ways it was easier. I already knew not to talk unless it had some meaning, or to agree with the leader. Things didn’t hurt as much, emotion replaced by a numb cold. There was even another one of Freya’s subjects. I did learn his name, Damion, but I was never quite sure what to make of him. He seemed to be helping Antony of his own will, which stuck me as too strange for me to trust him.
Because in some ways it was harder. Antony’s pack was crueler, with routine fighting matches that left at least one participant bloody and bruised. It was every man for himself at the slightest sign of danger, Antony remaining in charge only by constant growling, and threats, and endless posturing as leader. Each night I placed myself under his hand, hoping it would be enough.
And until the night Damion came to steal me away, and bring me to yet another pack, to Hector, it was.
______
Hector doesn’t try to touch me. I’m still not sure why. It feels odd, yet again being in unknown territory. I don’t think I want me life to keep shifting.
I’m not feeling constantly sick anymore. Now I have something more substantial to sustain myself on than unsaid words.
But I’m cold all the time now. I could sit by the fire for hours, or wrap myself in the thickest clothes I can find but I still feel cold. This is a deeper cold than the biting winds of winter, lingering even as spring comes again. This cold seems to sit in my very bones, detaching me from the warmth of being human. I think the cold has been here a long time. Perhaps all of the After times. Perhaps only since I entered this damn forest.
I know now this is the cold my mother felt. I can never face going home.
