I did not believe the warnings before, but the veil between this world and the next must be thinning with Hyrrm’s rumbling because my song has summoned something dark and dangerous. It stays even when my song stops, a rough creature, looking down at me with eyes which burn like the lava lakes in the mountains above us.
My body tells me that I have come in contact with a predator. The hairs on the back of my neck all rise individually in a slow ripple which carries down over my spine and across my arms, chills covering my body until they find my extremities and terminate in a cold rush which sweeps back to my core. I am frozen in something deeper than fear. It feels as though I have become stone. I cannot move. I cannot do anything other than stare, trying to take in the sight which reveals itself between the swaying strands of grain.
Those eyes stare into mine and I feel the connection that is made when two beings with souls are connected via gaze. It is powerful even between people, but with this being, it is amplified. I am sensitive. I have always been told that I was strange. I feel things other people don’t seem to notice, or refuse to acknowledge.
I open my mouth, looking for a word, but it’s not a word that comes out, it’s a note. A clear sound which trills from my soul and travels across the space between us.
His lips part and I see the fangs inside his mouth. Long. Sharp. Like the beasts which prowl the jungles we avoid. Out on the river plains the only sharp teeth we need to worry about are the scaly ones which swim in the water. We get most of our water through small channels dug in the banks, channels which even now are running through the crops between us. What channel could hold a beast like the one I am now looking at back? None.
The fangs part. He speaks.
“Beautiful.”
The word resonates through me, a compliment from a creature which does not look to me as though it should be able to speak, but we have all heard tales of the entities which roam this spirit haunted land. Everything has a spirit, even the crops which tickle my skin with the soft motions it makes with the wind. I wonder if he would be solid if I touched him, or if he would blow away with the breeze.
I reach for him, even though I should be running. He speaks my tongue. Nobody speaks our tongue; we are the river people and the sounds we make do not translate well to other groups. When travelers come by, raiders or traders or hunters, we can almost never speak to them. But this creature knows the words in my soul. He speaks with a rough beauty which matches the lightness of my song, making me hum softly.
A growl emerges from his throat. It is not an aggressive sound, it is a rhythmic sound, an enticement to my song which is teased back from my lips. He makes the sound again, and again, creating a line of bass over which my trilling sounds flow like the water rushing over rocks at the river’s edge.
I have never sung with anyone besides Hyrrm, but this creature finds the lower registers I could never reach and matches them with my song, making it richer and more potent. Our voices entwine and become more beautiful together than they were apart. I never knew that my song was looking for another song, but I can feel the full melody flowing through me, made richer and more intense for his accompaniment.
There is nothing left for me in this world of man, but it seems to me that the one beyond is already laying claim to me. This encounter feels more real in seconds than all the interactions I have had with my fellow humans in the many years I have been alive. His bass stays constant and rhythmic, allowing my song to rise and fall as it will.
I am being enchanted.
Seduced.
Those powerful eyes, those sharp fangs, those twitching horns, all suggest a beast who would be better to run from than to sing with, but I cannot help myself. The music wishes to be so strongly, it uses me as its instrument, and it claims him too, entwining us in an intimate embrace of souls.
“Mine,” he growls the word in the middle of his serenade. He reaches for me, his hand massive, his claws long and sharp enough to cut air, but they do not leave so much as a mark on me as his fingers wrap around the tender flesh of my upper arm and pull me close.
I am innocent. I have been kept pure. But I have all the instinct of a woman, and I know that the excitement rushing low between my thighs has a meaning and a purpose. I bask in his burning gaze, searching his eyes for clues as to his identity. He says nothing about himself. There are no words in his song, only the deep rumble which is powerful enough in and of itself to block out Hyrrm’s sounds. I have a sense of knowing that if I was made for anyone, I was made for him. Fire has always awaited me. I didn’t know it came in the form of a huge beast with little resemblance to my kind.