( And yet, their hands bounds, he plunges — shivered, when the waters rope and drag him, whip his hips and his flank and call him down, to lick long tongues across the scars that line his back, white, ancient.
It strikes him, pushing himself down despite the body's instinct to float and mind's to elude, that this is home-like. The closest kindness to Cloud Recesses, where cold streams spell the leisure of the wounded, the strained, those touched by the whips of discipline.
In the end, deeper. Sinking still, his silks all mist around him, floating — and with him, as he deepens down, the hungry, darkened silhouette of a curious creature he thinks, at first, to be Clara — until he knows his companion close, in hand. Then, he suspects a fish, perhaps a fox that's followed them in —
Only for his blood to curdle, when its face draws close, and it is a woman, yes, ever women who suffer, ever women who bar his path. Women who appear between blinks, and now this ghost is gone. He comes up, breaking water, droplets dragging down his cheek, trickling off his lashes — until Clara joins him. )
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( And yet, their hands bounds, he plunges — shivered, when the waters rope and drag him, whip his hips and his flank and call him down, to lick long tongues across the scars that line his back, white, ancient.
It strikes him, pushing himself down despite the body's instinct to float and mind's to elude, that this is home-like. The closest kindness to Cloud Recesses, where cold streams spell the leisure of the wounded, the strained, those touched by the whips of discipline.
In the end, deeper. Sinking still, his silks all mist around him, floating — and with him, as he deepens down, the hungry, darkened silhouette of a curious creature he thinks, at first, to be Clara — until he knows his companion close, in hand. Then, he suspects a fish, perhaps a fox that's followed them in —
Only for his blood to curdle, when its face draws close, and it is a woman, yes, ever women who suffer, ever women who bar his path. Women who appear between blinks, and now this ghost is gone. He comes up, breaking water, droplets dragging down his cheek, trickling off his lashes — until Clara joins him. )
You beheld her?