Bessa

Delegations 2/3

The palm of his hand rests on my sternum, soothing the tightness, soothing the pain that bites into the space of my heart.

There seems to be an occlusion down my throat making it impossible to take in the air.

"Breathe with me, Bessa." His chest expands out, I follow him until both of us exhale slowly out.

Inhale, exhale....inhale, exhale...inhale, exhale...

Resting my head on the top rise of his chest, the rhythm of his heart is regular, reliable, and much different than mine.

Rain starts to pelt the windows, the Savage moves quickly from me. Getting the packs from the back door, before getting mine that's just laying there where I dropped it between the doorframe.

Gluttonous clouds greedily consume the blue of the sky.

"We need to unpack all this, take inventory of everything we have, Bessa." The Savage starts to undo his ties holding his packs together as one big pack. When he kneels down, his back is facing me, I can see the raw skin peeled away from the weight he carried. He never asked me once to carry anything more, in fact, I caught him taking things out of my pack to put more in his when he thought I was sleeping at our rest stops.

"Did you carry things for her on your way back from the summer grounds?" The Savage looks at me, his hands are rooted in one of his packs.

"Last summer I did carry some of the weight of her pack."

Silence...

Sitting down next to my pack, "when do you think I'll stop asking you questions?" I'm focused on my hands trying to undo the knots he made to secure the top of the pack.

"I'm not sure, I think when you get your fill of answers when you feel satisfied you know enough. Until then ask anything you want, and I will always answer you, no matter how hard it is for you to hear the answer and me to tell you the answer." The Savage comes over to take the pack from my hands, I'm watching how he undoes the complicated knot in just a soft pull in the opposite direction.

"Why would it be hard for you to answer my questions, I'm the one having to listen to it, not you. I'm the one imagining it in my mind. You and her, laughing, talking, putting away things for your future. I'm not with you in those times, I'm not on your right, she is." Opening the flap of the pack, taking out all dry goods that will become our winter stores. Spreading out the piles on different wild grains that have been crushed with mortar to make a fine flour that is pale and light.

"It's hard for me to answer because I can understand all my mistakes now. I have to tell them out loud to you. Confess everything to you, my right."

"Not only do you have to tell me, but when I mark you, I get to relieve it. How will you feel when I get to see you two, smell you two, taste the desire in your mouth for her?" The contents of the pack are now pulled out.

"You're going to see everything, I won't hide anything from you. I can't go back in time, Bessa." One of his packs is empty, he's turned it inside out to hang on a hook by the fire.

"When you mark me, you're going to see someone who put her mate above everything else, including herself. Everything I did was always for you, and everything you did was always for yourself and her."

Silence...

The storm that came so violently is now just sporadic raindrops on the roof of the house.

"I just can't let those thoughts go." A sharp truth out that bites into the spot of his chest that holds no tattoo.

"I'm sorry, Bessa."