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With the blind and aimless panic of bits and pixels flashing across a medical chart code blue, there was no time to remember anything, fact or fiction. No time to remember names, whereabouts, years, footsteps, flailings or proper doors to slip out of. There was only one name that could be spoken at the flash of time: Flee.
Who’s fault was it that the two of them were caught in this fever sprint? Even to a self-flagellating wretch such as ENA, this really didn’t hold much weight right now. There’s no time for regret or guilt when you are actively running from the hot pursuit of Sacred Antibodies. Once their brainless attention came to a being like her, there was no chance for redirection or distraction. Not until her existence was removed from the more closely guarded corridors of the seemingly endless Great Runas. Such is why it is vastly, vastly important to know where you are going as you make your great pilgrimage. But the two of them had no more pilgrimage after wishes past. And now their aimless wandering and journeying thereafter had led them into this monumental, life-threatening blunder.
“Quit looking behind you, genius!” Hollered Moony in the heat of the moment. “Just run!”
“What about you, chum?!” ENA squaked. “Are you keeping up well in your—”
“Go!!”
True, it would help to keep both eyes on the path before her, but her incessant fear and worry kept drawing hers behind her. On one hand, there was her best friend, newly shaped and adapting to her current body, which bolted on all fours in long, awkward strides in desperate flight. On the other, there was the dreadful sight of their pursuers themselves. Like great, jagged shards of volcanic glass, they swarmed madly after the both of them. They were spastic, agile and persistent, as any immune response should be. All inclined gods help any stupid, dumb cosmic antigen that earned their muderous wrath.
But not even the most merciful gods could save her now that her foot had been swept out from underneath her.
The sharply cornered ridge in the terrain caught her by the toes and sent the rest of her body careening forward, met harshly and punitively by the ground below. A fearsome refrain echoed in her stomach and single-handedly drowned out the commands and direction of her sensible mind. Louder still were the livid hums and whirs of the Sacred Antibodies closing in after her as she uttered a horrified yell and made a forlorn attempt to get to her feet again.
Alas, foul chorus. Alas. Fill now both ears of this deaf and cretinous void and rend it till neither threads nor dust remain. It is well-earned.
The impact she felt against her back could not be seen, and she dared not look. It whisked her effortlessly off the ground and made off with her in no time, plunging her through the bright, blue light she had not a moment to make sense of.
The air that surrounded her now was almost silence in comparison. A long, hollow reverb resounded through the senseless cavern of indefinite depth. The primordial, basal feeling in her mind was oddly familiar. As though the dignity of highest reason and intelligence was now a farce stripped away, the feral essence beneath exposed and seen by all thousandfold eyes of the ceaseless hall. Go too now. She had been here before. She felt it. Should she be afraid? Should she laugh? Cry? Scream out and await a reply of some manner?
Open her eyes?
It felt like a joke to assume she had eyes anymore, but she bid whatever eye remained crack one open and fearfully observe her current state of affairs.
The swirling helixes of immortal holy code that soared past her eyes was an unexpected yet ridiculously welcome sight to her fogged senses. She moved forward with haste, yet no act of her own doing.
Something beneath her back gripped tighter, pulled her closer to whatever had firm hold of her. Almost cradled her. A very strong arm.
Without further notice, her body broke the tide and met the near blinding daylight at its surface. An intimately familiar voice gasped for breath against her ear. The voice of a moonbeam.
At last, ENA let both her eyes confront the moment surrounding her, and now both of them felt like crying.
With winded vigor, Moony staggered to the shore and hauled the both of them beneath the shade of polymorphic brush and flora. And then she practically collapsed against the 16-bit sand. But her arms did not release. In fact, they only drew in snugger around ENA. She felt them gently yet firmly squeeze her ‘round the torso, warm and a little jittery. Beneath her ear, the deep, tired breathing. Little hints of her companion’s shaken voice as she came down from survival mode. A quick, strong and quiet heartbeat. ENA felt an odd warmth crawling down her spine, alien and somehow deeply, profoundly relaxing. Dazedly she let her face brush against Moony’s chest, lingering long on the sensation.
“...Hey- You okay...?” Moony asked, raising her head in concern.
It took ENA much longer than usual to realize Moony was speaking to her. Blinking with a start, she lifted herself a bit to look at her, one arm hesitant to support itself on her chest for fear of poor manners.
“Ghh- Moony, I…” ENA stuttered, a hint of blue appearing in her voice. “I-I’m so sorry! My stupid clumsiness almost got you killed. You shouldn’t have let me weigh you down like that. Y-you should’ve just–”
“Pffffff. Weighed schmeyed.” Moony shot off as though worry never touched her voice in the first place. “It’s almost hilarious how much of a cinch it is to carry you.”
Her bout of gloom thoroughly stalled, ENA took a quiet if awkward moment to look over the result of Moony’s granted wish.
“...I must admit, that– was a formidable display of strength on your part.”
It most definitely felt as if Moony had some reply to follow that up with, but it regrettably never arrived. Silence was left no choice but to serve a pitiful substitute otherwise. And silence proved graceless in its short-notice task.
“...Are you adjusting well to your newfound physical form, my friend?” ENA followed, giving poor silence the break it needed to run off and cry in a corner.
“Well enough to get us both outta that scrap unscathed, that’s for sure.” She answered with pride.
Her eye widened and blinked in noticeable thought. Sitting up and propping on her side, she gave ENA a closer look, cupping a hand around her face.
“...You’re not hurt, are you?”
ENA’s words delayed a moment before sheepishly leaving her mouth.
“...A touch sore from the spill perhaps, but…”
Like that, she trailed off into something of a captivated quiet. Her speech had been quite halted by the gentle hand against her cheek. Moony stared at her in confusion before getting a coy glint in her lone eye.
“What’s the matter, I-NA?” She jibed. “Never been touched by hands before?”
ENA could only think to bring her own timid hand to the one that lay against her face. Otherwise she could barely think at all.
“...No, I don’t believe I have.” She said thoughtfully, wistfully. “...I confess it feels quite nice.”
At once the devilish look departed from Moony’s expression. Her complexion took on brighter, rosier shades in no time really. The wild fluttering in ENA’s chest only grew in intensity when her face softened, followed by her voice.
“God, girl. Why do you gotta be such a doll?”
So pitiable had the state of ENA’s composure become that her only retort was a bashful chuckle.
“...Your face is getting all warm ENA.” She teased in tones softer still.
“It was like that–” ENA clapped back with a ruffled, defensive smirk. She knew far too well the ring she was stepping into, and yet…
“Mmmmm-hm.” Slid Moony’s voice into silk as indeed her hand slid slowly beneath ENA’s head. It took all mental fortitude for her not to go utterly mad.
“Mm– Lovessake, Moony, is it such a grave sin to feel a t—”
ENA’s voice faded into a faltering breath when she felt Moony’s fingers gently tickling her under her chin. Faint pins and needles rippled down her back before her body broke out in a full shudder. The touch was rhythmic, teasing, and gods so tender. She found herself whimpering once or twice, her strength quickly becoming all but gelatin.
And now it was Moony who was chuckling. Even so, the line between coy and enamored in her tone was becoming as fuzzy as ENA’s right mind.
“My God, you are an easy crowd.” Moony cooed.
It wasn’t but the flicker of an eyelash or a thousand before ENA was leaning against Moony again. Her weakness was welcomed by two hands. One against her back, the other stroking her jet black hair. She nuzzled up under Moony’s head, clinging to her chest and treating her ears to a whispered stream of adoring words that don’t exist. How weak it made her to hear Moony sigh softly in refrain. She could wither up and wilt like the fabric of an umbrella beneath a raging monsoon. Still ENA brought her head up in spellbound gaze with Moony and, reversing tides ecstatic, brought an affectionate hand to her face. She felt her chest rise and fall beneath her in a deep and gentle breath.
“...I can only imagine–” ENA hummed in meek, tentative thought. “...this is a- relatively new thing to you as well.”
A snicker beneath quiet breath sauntered from Moony’s lungs.
“I hate how spot-on you are right now.”
“You’re– delightfully gentle. For a stranger to touch.”
“Oh, don’t make me like you, hon.”
All nerves again stood on razor’s edge the minute ENA felt fingernails grazing the surface of her back. They did slow, careless circles. It tickled and yet it didn’t. How crazily divine it felt. She couldn’t stifle breathing, whining, almost pleading giggles, nor could she remain still as she fidgeted beneath her lover’s hand. Moony chuckled and only made her touch slower, lighter, and ENA now thought she might go half-mad. Nails came to rest at the bridge of her shoulders and gave a tight, gentle scritching that sunk her keyed up brain like a stone, teased forth a quiver.
“Mmmmm…”
ENA splayed out in a reflexive stretch, legs considerably wobbly. When her arms returned to rest, she let both of them hug Moony around her shoulders. Her head, cuddling against her lover, hiding her face. In the spur of bliss, ENA gave firm, loving kisses around Moony’s shoulders, her chest, beneath her head. Her love was luxuriantly rewarded with soft groans that echoed in her moonbeam of a voice, the shiver that seized her. Both shaky arms came up around ENA’s back and surrounded her in that same firm, gentle squeeze that stilled her earlier terrors. This was Elysium, and tide called out to tide in relentless embrace.
ENA had learned to keep ecstasy at an arm’s length with the droning of time. For if ecstasy was only a dream, she would inevitably wake to the endless, quiet, shrouding void that long entombed her. Those fears, though, got quieter and quieter with each gentle sway of her soulmate’s body, each gentle touch, every madly rioting nerve. Touch and feeling was a tether. Sensation was daylight. She felt, and so she was. She cleaved to it with fevered abandon, chancing ecstatic shivers and joy that was close to making her crack right open.
“Brightest thing you. Brightest light. I could come apart here and now.” ENA’s voice shook with emotion.
“ENA.” She hummed with a rare and intense fondness.
“Moonette.”
“You’re here, baby girl. You’re here.”
“Here am I. It’s true. Doubtless.”
“I’ve got you.”
“Gods oh gods I could break.”
“Shhhhh…”
Moony practically hid her in both arms, strong and unyielding to the madness above. ENA thought nothing must be able to take her from those arms. Not the fates themselves, nor their judges. She laid her head back down. The heartbeat below had taken on steady, mellow rhythms, and she heard them. They steadied her own raging heart, slowly but surely. With time all things must come in tune, return to equilibrium. She saved and cherished the journey to that stability. She carved a testament in the fabric of space that lined her mind, and made her home in moonlight, the needle in the endlessly growing haystack. So sweet was the pinprick and how wonderfully snug. The vast and empty wouldn’t make her afraid in this moment. She threw that caution to the wind.
And her eyes grew heavy in its absence. The gentle heartbeat, the safe haven under two arms, the sweet nothings in whispers, were all that remained.