Novacaine

Caedes felt the weight of Mariah’s presence as she molded herself against him, her warmth seeping into his bones and chasing away the chill that gripped him. He was acutely aware of the dried blood, the ash, the scent of death that clung to him, but she made no mention of it, choosing instead to hold him close. Her soft murmurs and gentle nuzzles provided him something to cling to, his tortured soul grasping at anything to help ground him here and now.

‘Shh, we're safe here.’ She whispered, her voice so soothing, so necessary to hear.

He felt her breath catch in his fur, her heart thudding steadily against his chest. Each beat was proof that he was not trapped in the void of his disconnection, that he was capable of feeling again, that he was not still paralyzed in his den watching Sephiran kill Aurelia.

He clung to her, his body trembling with the remnants of his anguish, but slowly, gradually, he began to relax into her embrace. Yet the more he relaxed, the more he felt overwhelmed again. This time, though, it wasn't rage that surfaced; it was pure, unfiltered grief and shame, flooding through him with an intensity that threatened to drown him.

“I do not deserve safety.” The brute murmured, his voice rough and broken. The words hung in the air, a confession of the guilt and self-loathing that gnawed at his soul. He buried his face in her fur, the scent of her, clean and comforting, filling his senses. The dam inside him broke, and a single, painful sob wracked his massive frame.

The sob was followed by another, and then another, each one more heart-wrenching than the last. The grief he had kept locked away, the shame he had hidden beneath layers of anger and resolve, poured out of him in a torrent of tears and shuddering breaths. His body shook with the force of it, his pain laid bare in the safe cocoon of her arms.