Soteria

[Tristan]

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The heat of Thalia’s chest slicked against his own. His arms wrapped about her back, and his fingers strung through her tangled hair. He was pliant beneath her, melding and molding into the curves of her body. He couldn’t believe the moment was real. Although in his heart he knew it wasn’t, it was Nimeda that frayed the boundaries of what was real.

It was the call of an ancient name that summoned his eyes open. The smoky haze through which he looked beheld Nimeda’s gaze like she was fogged far away. Yet without hesitation, his lips pressed to hers as though ensuring she was still near enough to kiss. Relief rose within. The press of her hands to his temples rolled his head as though he may howl at the moon. He leaned, back arched, chest a broad canvas of hair and ink. If the blood was singing, what bubbled to the surface came alive, playing out across his skin in a symphony of movements.

The paint curled into shapes linked together in one slender stroke of black:

A cat poised with one paw raised
A raven with its beak splayed wide
A triangle inverted between two circles
A bear raised on its hind legs
A jagged mountain peak rising tall

As a sixth symbol, a trollkors, settled over his heart, the chains locked together, and a hellish face replaced Nimeda’s. His eyes flared wide, surprised by the sudden shift. While he was locked under her, he could not flee, nor did he want to, strangely entranced as he was. The hellish face shifted to that of an old woman, her hair stringy and gray, the eyes yellow, teeth sharp prongs. Then the face morphed into the tentacle-crowned beast lady of the lake. So the faces changed until at last he beheld a beauty whose hair was the river Van and her mouth tasted of oblivion, but she was not too different from Nimeda herself. Were these people real? Were they all figments of his deranged mind? Or were they all Nimeda one in the same? Did she change herself or was he inducing the metamorphosis spurned by his own lusts? He was panting, though from exertion or fear, he did not know. The symbols on his chest remained as did the grey fog through which he saw their shared dream. Did she see it too? 

His heart throbbed drums in his chest. He had to change. If he didn’t, he would snap a bite so hard as surely as if the hand of a beloved was thrust straight into his jaws and devoured on a dare.

Suddenly, Tristan scooped her beneath the seat of her thighs, lifted and laid her on the grass instead. Her hair laid dark against the matted bed, but his basalt eyes veered from hers, fearing the next face to emerge. As he lowered himself into her again, the knot of desire stirred fiercely, and he buried his face in the plump flesh of her breasts.