Good. [shauna repeats it, soft, an echo of his unsure words, of the way travis sways forward, back, forward again, like he doesn’t know what to do, like he’s waiting for direction. antlers rise in her mind, thorny and pronged and many-forked – my queen, bitten out in jealous sarcasm, but meant in earnest by lottie, by akilah, by tai and van and misty. by him, she wonders? do his dreamtime excursions overseen by lottie mean he still thinks of her when he sees the antlered crown? or is his loyalty to nat, to the leadership bought with ice and blood?
does he look at shauna and see only her tear-streaked face in the snow, her knife at javi’s throat, his baby brother’s heart in her hands?
a gulping, shuddery inhale and shauna is suddenly pushing away from the tree, wracked between two forests, between hers and here, between the butcher and the huntress, fantasy and reality. she reaches up, pulls her mask off, leaves her hair tangled and tousled and stumbles a couple paces away.]
No. [there’s a bitterness in how she says it, thinking of everyone she’s ever held, jeff in the front seat of his car, jackie on the front step, her baby in the cabin. thinking of how she left the mark of her ragged nails in all of them, and it never worked. shauna looks sideways at travis, sees him for what he is, who he is, cautious and confused and human, like her. maybe in the grand scheme, his hands are no cleaner than hers, but when shauna pictures them, they’re holding javi’s carvings, akilah’s ducklings, natalie’s hand. not a knife.]
Don’t think I could keep you, even if I tried. [and it sounds like the saddest thing in the whole world, to say it out loud.]
cw: violence, death, cannibalism againnn
does he look at shauna and see only her tear-streaked face in the snow, her knife at javi’s throat, his baby brother’s heart in her hands?
a gulping, shuddery inhale and shauna is suddenly pushing away from the tree, wracked between two forests, between hers and here, between the butcher and the huntress, fantasy and reality. she reaches up, pulls her mask off, leaves her hair tangled and tousled and stumbles a couple paces away.]
No. [there’s a bitterness in how she says it, thinking of everyone she’s ever held, jeff in the front seat of his car, jackie on the front step, her baby in the cabin. thinking of how she left the mark of her ragged nails in all of them, and it never worked. shauna looks sideways at travis, sees him for what he is, who he is, cautious and confused and human, like her. maybe in the grand scheme, his hands are no cleaner than hers, but when shauna pictures them, they’re holding javi’s carvings, akilah’s ducklings, natalie’s hand. not a knife.]
Don’t think I could keep you, even if I tried. [and it sounds like the saddest thing in the whole world, to say it out loud.]