He followed the line of her arm. A strange sense of calm fell over him as she started to speak. It was as if he expected a long, drawn out tale. As soon as her arm dropped, so too did her voice. She didn't shy away from explaining how it was, but some scars ran very deep indeed. Right now,
Scabhair could hide that pain from him as well as she could the lines across her body.
He rolled onto his side to face her. He winced as the dry grass peeled away from the marks she had left upon him. The firelight played tricks with his eyes, her expression seemingly fleeting between emotions as the light danced across her features. It was brave of her, he thought to himself. Scabhair had tried to veer him away, despite the fact that she wanted him. He hadn't. In the end they had collided head on.
He would never be able to truly see the situation through her own eyes. A father was not a mother. It was typical for both mother and father to raise a child, but it was the mother who grew the babe inside herself, the mother the child clung to and fed from as they ran across the savanna. Hath could never know what it was to lose that.
Once more, he did not answer at first. His eyes fell upon the scars that could be seen and understood. Palm hovered above her left breast, a glance up to her eyes before it settled there. His middle finger traced the groove across her breast, it cut a deep line, distorting the shape of the ring around her nipple. Just below the breast it split and his hand curled into a claw. Three fingers followed the soft, smooth scar tissue. His hand settled there where they ended.
“I never really knew my father,” he said softly. “Kardidua has, as long as I can remember, been my chieftain. The mark I leave behind on this world…” gaze dropped to the pale streaks that tried to come between them, “...does not have to be in the continuation of my bloodline. There are always those who need to be guided and shown our ways.”
Was he deluding himself? Was this a fleeting fancy driven by desire alone? The questions barely crossed his mind before being summarily dismissed. They had been beside one another so long, like orchids that grew on the same vine and became intertwined with one another. No bud would blossom from those tangled vines and leaves, but it didn't make tearing them apart the right thing to do.
Months were not much to a lifetime together. An orc lived fast. Everything started somewhere. Everything had an end. This had started here. Where the light that gave life to all had ended, only to begin again tomorrow when Lessat rose from the east.
“If I do have a choice, we go north as one.” He left her scars behind, palm settling comfortable at the curve of her waist. A gentle pull mirrored the tug he felt. It was the conviction in his eyes that carried the message, not his words or hands.