Skarsh Waterscale's Arc

Chapter 2 of 9

Her eyes open. They are gray, the color of storm clouds over deep water. They fix on Skarsh before he can pull back, before he can slide into the shallows and disappear. The cloth is still pressed against her shoulder. His hand is still holding it there. Skarsh wants to retreat. Every instinct tells him to let go, to slip back past the stones carved with old runes that mark the water's edge. But her breathing is still shallow. The cloth, thin snakeskin soaked through with the drake's healing shimmer, needs pressure or the bleeding will start again. If he moves now, she dies. If he stays, she sees him. The choice was already made when he left the water. She does not scream. She does not pull away. Her gaze moves from his face to his clawed hand, then to the wound beneath the glowing cloth. She tries to speak, but her voice catches. The drake hisses soft beside him, coiled in the moss and mud. Skarsh watches her watching him, waiting for the fear, the disgust, the moment she understands what he is. Instead, her hand lifts. Slowly. Shaking. She reaches toward the cloth, toward his hand still pressing it in place. Her fingers brush his scales. They do not flinch back. She lets them rest there, light as water, and her eyes meet his again. Recognition flickers across her face — not of what he is, but of who. She remembers. Skarsh sees it in the way her breath steadies, in the way her hand stays where it is. The version of her he carried in his mind breaks apart, and something real and heavier takes its place. She is not the imagined savior who existed only in memory. She is this woman, bleeding and awake, choosing not to pull away. He does not know if that is better or worse. But he knows he cannot hide from it now.