Page 68 of Thief of Roses
“The only harm ys self-ynflycted,”he assured her, sighing with his whole body,“whyche should garner no sympathie.Y overreacted to changes whiche accustomed Y sholde nowe be.Yet Y doon nay take kyndlie to wakyng wyth teeth yn my face embedded or yn fyxed collar.”
Rivani withdrew to look at the new formations again.The formation around his shoulders and neck did seem rather collar-like.The bone came up from his sternum and split before it reached his throat, wrapped around low at his shoulders with tendrils drifting towards his shoulders, and then meeting up again at the nape of his neck, interrupting the flow of curled mane, and following his spine for several inches before disappearing back below his fur.The bone ringed his neck like a collar that did not want to proclaim itself as one.
She touched it with a fingertip.
“More gifts.”She did not have to ask anymore.
Baró nodded.
“We do not use the Magic,” she lamented, not to him but to the Intelligence that meted out these gifts.“Can You not just let us exist in peace?”
“Magic-use did not do this.More like my damned fool mouth,” he growled out.“Have I not avowed myself to you?Have we not come together in acts that no woman should want with me?This,” he gestured towards his chest.“This is the reminder that I am — I would say at the mercy, but there is no mercy — instead rather at the whim of Another.I only wonder that it did not come sooner.”
Rivani sat on the floor in front of him, needing his closeness and the warmth of the fire to keep the eerie chill away.
“Do you mean to say that every change you go through — it’s because of something affectionate?”
He paused before he answered.She understood that he waited to feel the air change to indicate the Magic’s presence.With their self-sufficiency, there had been almost no input from the Magic at all.When nothing happened, he returned his attention to her.
“Not just affection.”He reached out a hand to put over hers.“I am not forbidden but discouraged in speaking.Everything here reinforces being an animal.If I could embrace that and let my mind go, there would be no new gifts, no shameful awareness, no physical hindrances.This place encourages me to be ignorant of the memory of humanity, human communication, and human interaction.When I do not embrace it, dear gods, Rivani, the consequences!”He laughed without mirth, closed his eyes, and bowed his head.“I had hind paws and those were taken for walking upright.Anything that makes it ‘too easy’ to feign humanity gets taken or changed.I am intended to be ugly and dull, devoid of anything that betrays personality or intelligence, anything that might give you a sense of a person.”He opened his eyes and glanced over at her.“I fight it.And I will never comply with the Magic’s wishes if it means I must lose out on you.”
Rivani put her free hand over Baró’s.It would have been easier all the way around for him to have sent her away.Instead, he bargained for her time, aware he would be harmed by it.She benefited from it.She had not yet figured out how he did.She did not think her presence or affection or care was worth all that he would suffer.
“Then you know what caused your other gifts.”
“My tongue changed when you told me you would grow accustomed to me.I mentioned being one tail short of an animal and then saw that remedied.You praised my hair and it became fur.”He gulped.“You kissed me with passion and my snout grew to make it more difficult and unpleasant.”
“Then you’re not just punished for what you say and do.It’s what I do too.”The horror of having him subjected to the consequence of not just his actions but hers made her feel like she might be sick.She entertained staying beyond her year but she could not if he would suffer all the more for it.
“Oh gods.”She told the Magic that she loved Baró not long ago.Were these the consequences for that stray admission?“Am I being cruel to you by staying?”
“No, please.”His hand tightened around hers.“You are not cruel.Another hurts me, not you.You are all the joy I have in this world.Whatever new gifts await me, I will bear them.We have a few weeks left as it is and I must treasure every day I have with you, regardless of what I may suffer for it.”
“If only I could find the way to take you with me.”
He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it.
“There is no place for me out there.I know that.Here at least, I am your Fir’Darl, both animal and god, hideous and magnificent, powerful and powerless.”He rubbed her hand with his thumb, indulging in its softness.“I like being your Fir’Darl,” he admitted, “and I like being your mate.It will be too brief, but for its duration, this is natural and right for us, and no one can make me feel otherwise.My gifts are but small prices for the honor of receiving your affections.”
“I don’t see how.”
“Once you leave, whatever has been done to me will matter little.It will pale in comparison to the grief of your leaving.The distress of additional gifts will only be served by the little humanity I still possess.And without you here to keep it awake and present, it will drift back to sleepy disuse.The animal will resume control.And as you once told me, what animal cares about such things like the presence or absence of a tail?”
She raised their joined hands and kissed his knuckles.
“If I were a man,” he confessed, “I would ask you to marry me.”
“If you were Rivani, we would already be wed.”
His brows knit.“But I am part Rivani.”
Rivani patted his hand before she removed her other from his grasp.
“You have Rivan blood in your veins, yes, but you were not raised Rivani.”
“Does my not being raised Rivani matter more than my...”Baró hunted for a word and shrugged, apparently unable to find it.“More than not being a man?”
Rivani laughed, glad she could still laugh at anything after learning how much of his physical suffering for which she was responsible.
