Allister soaked the words in that she spoke. He grinned every time the ‘s’ sound lingered against her teeth. The dainty lady in the red dress exuded power- a confidence in herself but the deep eyes of an animal shed more than her words. The hyena was enjoying his game until his partner…teammate or opponent, he wasn’t sure, needed to take a break. The kelvic froze in the grasp of tiny fingers squeezing against his throat. Being a dog kelvic, he had been burdened by a collar on more than several occasions so her weak grasp didn’t trigger him the same way that he remembered. The split tick’s realization seemed to slow the world down to a speed that made sense to Allister. He had an epiphany and an acute observer would see the muscles around his eyes curl back in surprise though his next action could not have been anticipated.
Allister felt the rustle of her dress against his chest as the Dhani whipped her knees on either side of his ribs. He responded by clamping his long, pale fingers down on the lower part of her upper legs to hold her in place while he drove his neck into her hand. At the sign that her elbow might give way, the former slave adjusted his pressure towards the outside to force her fingers back towards her wrist. The exhiliaration he felt as his body struggled to pump blood past the resistance created by the small woman’s chokehold was euphoric and in no small part nostalgic. Allister leaned in which made his pale skin slowly flood with an ugly purple from the string and spoke with a garbled tone that was something far removed from animal and man. Each word he gasped forth widened his glassy eyes and brought his face an eyelash closer to hers.
Her speech, the words he didn’t hear washed over him like a bath he never took but her eyes told him everything. The Dhani needed to feel powerful. She was in a form that was something less than what her potential should be. Allister felt proud of putting two pieces together in a conversation like this. The way Ssanya talked about her true form held such reverence and so in this itty bitty human form, she felt exposed. Taking the kelvic by the throat may have been reactionary but it was serving a much deeper purpose for the attractive little red flower on the bench. A heat sparked inside the former slave and he leaned inwards still despite the white explosions happening behind his eyes and the burning sensations chasing themselves down his neck and along his chest.
“I’ll tell you any story you wish to hear.” His voice quickly lost volume and tone. He became no more than the sound of a rough surface softly scraping a smooth one. “If you want to hear another tale or a song, correct me of my mistakes!” He was struggling with his annunciation at this point but maintained a heavy weight against his windpipe. He illustrated his point but shoving ahead twice on a few words then slipped back and away from her like a limp doll. His hands fell away from her legs where they had been clamped like irons in the slave market. In a heap, he rested beneath her once more, his black beady eyes, ringed with erupted blood vessels, looked up at her from a position of submission. She offered him a drink and he accepted. The mumbles of appreciation were thick with mucus and shallow breaths as the hyena continued to recover from the brief ordeal.
While he ran through his options for things to say which would make Ssanya happy, Allister allowed his position of vulnerability to calm his body. The one thing Allister had which he had never shared with anyone outside of Madeira was his magic. In the stillness, he allowed the shell of his right arm to detach. Slowly, the kelvic was becoming more aware of the djed that filled and surrounded his form; was his form. He could feel it taking up the space between his core and the ostracized piece of soul that floated up from his lap towards the woman. His throat was parched and sore so the being once but no longer a slave decided to try this new drink he had been offered.
With his left hand, Allister lifted the bottle to his mouth to examine the lid. It didn’t look complicated but the simple answer was not one that his shaken brain held. In lieu of an answer, the hyena settled for a shortcut. He opened his mouth wide and bit the lid between his metal teeth. He flexed his arm from the shoulder on down to his hand where he cinched in a tight squeeze. In a single ripple, like water being swished about in a pot, the hyena twisted until the seal gave way and his head snapped back from the motion. Allister spit the lid on the ground and lifted the bottle to his lips then drank. As the cool, sticky juice flowed down his damaged throat, he felt the burn of the alcohol but also the cleansing effect that it left behind. He kept drinking. The greedy animal, a scavenger, lifted the glass until it contained nothing for he used his tongue to lick the last few drops off of the rim. Wide grin on his face, he dropped the bottle in the grass and stared straight at the tan skin which seemed to be even smoother now that the flush had faded from her cheeks.
“I have a story for you…” his voice was better but still scratchy and hushed from the earlier squeeze. As he began to spin words of his own, the detached and invisible hand drifted about along the woman’s body as to trace an unseen shield against the delicate frame. When he reached her head his ran his fingers slowly through her hair as he pretended to be the wind. “Let me tell you about this tattoo!” He used his left hand to open his jacket a bit and pointed towards the mocking grin that was plastered across his pale but well-defined stomach. Thin, like the rest of his body, the wicked smile showed off muscle born of burden and abuse. Some of the lines seemed more like callouses than power.
However, Allister would not get a chance to begin for as he was showcasing his lead in to the tale of sedition and sadism, his stomach growled…or rather, the big mouth that lived there growled. The gargling noise and the placement of the inked mouth suddenly became overwhelmingly funny to the hyena. There was nothing he could do but succumb to the volcano that welled up inside of him. His mouth, the one on his face, opened up wide and a contortion of laughter, choking, coughing, giggling and a few squeaks bellowed out like spirits released after ages of being locked away. Allister laughed so hard that he felt sick but he kept going. His skin brightened and his lungs burned but the happy sounds never ceased.
Distracted by his fit of hilarity, the inexperienced magic user inadvertently moved his detached limb. It landed softly against her face and trailed down her cheek. From there it dragged its fingers along her graceful neck and down to her collarbone. Somewhat taken by necks, Allister felt the familiar curve and hard line of these things and paused just long enough to look directly where the hand was touching. He held a childlike expression with his mouth in an ‘o’ and his eyes held wide open. The laughter paused only for a moment- just long enough for Allister to recall his wayward hand and reattach it to his soul. Once he felt that connection solidify, the half-halted seizures of his diaphragm were released and more strange noises were set free upon the air. He was back to laughing as hard as he ever had in his short life.
