touch
nonverbal prompts / accepting.
     He is tired. Tired and hurt and shamed and relieved, and that is the only reason why he doesnât object. That is the only only reason why he does nothing when Half Of Him is swarmed. That is the only only ONLY reason why he simply sags into the ground and watches as the not-monster humans take Half Of Him away. There is an instant urge to follow, of course â a fear of forgotten-left-behind that almost has him rising and trailing after them to keep Him close â but there is also a taste on his tongue that shouldnât be there, blood in his maw that shouldnât be there, and he lets his tired-hurt-shame-relief melt away his fear as it melts away his protests.
     They donât take Him away too far. Just over to the edge where the sea touches the land. He doesnât understand why they do that when all of their floating dead-bark things are burnt and sunken, then they suddenly bare their fangs and he doesnât understand why they do that when the bad, most worst ever threat is already dead. Is there some other threat he canât sense there? Itâs all so very strange to see, especially when they start shouting nonsense and telling each other no, my fang is better! for what feels like ages and ages, but finally one of them wins ( why were they challenging each other in the first place?? ) and the defeated put their fangs away.
     Sun-Furred approaches him then and he asks her, Why did they do that? She doesnât answer ( at least, not in the way he wants her to ) but she does sit beside him and rub her paws along his head. The cold of them feels so good on the heat of his scorched scales that he leans as much as he can into her and forgives her for not answering.
     They watch together as the other humans fuss over Half Of Him and do a lot more things he doesnât understand why they do. They all seem to be worried-focused on His hindleg though, and Sun-Furredâs smell says âpeace-sad-reliefâ instead of âpanic-distress-fearâ, so he thinks maybe all those things he doesnât understand are for fixing what he didnât-mean-to-but-did-anyway broke.
     Thereâs a pause where nothing happens. Where they all just look at what theyâve gathered and done. Until the human-king takes the fang he was burning out of the fire a gem-crowned helped them make andâ
     Something about his heat must feel very good to Sun-Furred too because she all at once moves until sheâs crouched over his head and stretches her forelegs across his eyes.
     Stop that, he snorts and tries to gently shake her off. Itâs nice that she likes his heat so much but also not because now he canât see what theyâre going to do next. Off, let meâ
     The yelps of several scared-upset-confused people cut through the air and he stills.
     Sun-Furred exhales from where sheâs sprawled against him. She tries stroking calm-peace-quiet into his scales but it doesnât work because sheâs trembling and her scent is turning sour with hurt-grief-distress, and thatâs all he can take before heâs leaping to aching paws and throwing her off.
     What is?! What is?! He searches the area for a threat, searching and searching and searching, except there is no threat: only grim-looking humans and horrified-sounding people and a still sleeping Half Of Him and the stench of too much bloodâ oh.
     No.
     No.
     No no NO NO!
     STOP! He roars and rushes towards the humans by the sea-edge, voice high with RAGE-PANIC-DISTRESS. Those very so much bad monster humans are hurting Half Of Him!! Why are they hurting Half Of Him?! STOP STOP STOP STOP!!
     He doesnât get very far before too many monsters pounce on him and hold him down. He opens his jaws to shoot but then they hold those down, too. He canât do anything but screech and cry and wail and moan, and he hears other people screech and cry and wail and moan back, but none of them are stopping the monster humans; why arenât they stopping the monster humans?!
     He shouldâve never let them take Him. He thought that they could maybe fix Him because He is a human and they are humans too, but he was so so so wrong; why did he let them take Him, why are they hurting Him when they should be healing Him, why why WHY WHY?!
     Sun-Furred approaches him again and he screams at her, WHY?! She doesnât answer ( never in the way he wants her to ) but she does kneel beside him and brush shaking paws along his ear-flaps.
     The cold of them doesnât feel so good anymore.
