beasts 4

He stopped crawling toward me and looked up. There he was...the man I knew as Tamas. But who was Tamas? All in flesh and blood....and eyes...penetrating eyes. Those eyes were so close that I could fall into them and drown forever. It was rather ridiculous, really... the way they made you feel. There was more magic there than in the transformation. I was thrashing and paddling in those waters, trying to keep myself afloat in those orbital unknowns.

I just couldn't help myself...I really couldn't. Something in my heart was about to burst and I had no idea why. I reached out with one soot covered hand to touch the man that I was sure was only an illusion.

"Tamas..." I whispered as a smile broke his countenance.

"Yes, it's me Roma."

Tamas turned his body this way and that trying to face me and yet be comfortable. The cavern was tight and his legs were pulled underneathe him. He wriggled a little more and pulled his body into a semi comfortable slumping position. He seemed okay with it and so he smiled again.

"I know you." My mind reached out again and tried to strengthen the newly formed connection. As tendrils of my brain touched his, he withdrew just a tad and his smile faded for a moment. It was as if he was trying to protect something in the midst of letting me see some of the things that might help me to understand the present situation. His eyes shifted down and then back again to meet mine. He bit his lip absently.

"We should leave here...now, Roma. They are onto your scent. They have the hounds with them and they expect your location on my return. They trust me, they own me in ways, you know. I am like a scout to them, you know. It is so very hard to explain to you about what all these things mean. I promise that I shall clear it all up for you....but you must trust me....please."

Tamas took my hand and placed it on his left cheek and closed his eyes. The thumb of my right hand brushed the bridge of his nose and I stroked the skin almost as habit. There was something oddly intimate about such a simple gesture. Turning his face into my hand, he sniffed the warm flesh of my palm, my wrist and my fingers. He seemed as fascinated with me and I was of him. I could see so much in the dim light...so much of Tamas. He looked into my eyes again and I saw even more of Tamas. I saw pain that was extraordinary but so well hidden. I saw anger and frustration and yet I saw a desire to be needed and accepted for what Tamas really was. In short...I saw humanity....and I desired that humanity.

"I know you...but why? How do I know you, Tamas?"

I reached, searching for anything that his mind could offer up to me. But he was guarded again, frightened...or maybe I took a wary protection as fear when there was no fear at all. Tamas was saddened suddenly...even defeated. He placed my hand back into my lap and looked down at his own fingers.

"It's not your fault Roma. I did this thing and I should have stayed there....helped you learn. I did not protect you....I did not stop it soon enough."

I started to understand nothing. I was more confused and his mind was a wall. I felt desires and hungers rising up from within. I pushed and pushed at veneer of Tamas's mind, hoping beyond hope to make a crack in the wall. I chipped a little away finally and saw just a bit of something. I saw a hunger...a hunger to rival and yet defeat my own. I saw desires so similar and so carnal but yet they were not mine. I saw things that Tamas had learned to control that appeared so much like my own crutches, my own defeats...and yet, he was broken...broken as I was broken.

I became angry. I felt the surge of flames rising up inside as I looked into those eyes. I saw the little girl alone in the forest crying...I saw the little girl through his eyes and then I saw the wolf...through my own eyes. I felt so small, so vulnerable. Then there was the huntsman. I looked up from a very small vantage point to see the huntsman standing above me, crossbow at ready...shouting in a language foreign to my own. I was crying. Then, again...switching to and fro...I saw through the eyes of the lycanthrope but not through my lupine acknowledgment...but his. An unknown predator, the wolf stalking the baby, the wolf wishing to devour the small child and the ..hunter...the hunter...his eyes so blue, his hair a mass of black and his face stern in concentration. Silver tipped arrow head quivering in the bow. The lunging of the wolf, the wound on my baby innocent arm. The cut, no...the gouge...no... the bite. I saw the hunter taken down in the jaws of the beast and so I ran on little legs. Trees flashing by me, rocks and then....the cavern.

The luminecent light danced on the cave wall making Tamas squint. I was here, with him and he was frowning. His forehead was furrowed. The face of the hunter, the eyes of death. It was only Tamas and I, alone inside the earth talking of things that should not be spoken in silent language of the mind. I looked down at my forearm and moving my tattered sleeve up and away from the rest of my arm. There were no wounds, only small star shaped scars dappled along the cold flesh. Hardened and healed by time, they were, things with not story until now. Why hadn't I remembered? A sudden pain erupted through my head and then visions of fur flying, elongation and hot hot blood trickling down my chin...the turning.

I gasped and pulled away from the man before me. I glared into his face, his reaching thick hands and I glared deep within those blue eyes.

" I hate you!"

Growling, I turned from Tamas scratching and scrambling attempting to  pull myself deeper into the cavern.... further away from the truth...so that I could hide.