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Then I will accompany you while you [—she clears her throat from a sound that might have started with "r"—] get up. [The dreaded koala-bird, clinging to him with utmost ferocity.]

[Yeah, he's not getting out of this one. Sitting back down on the edge of the bed, he lets her cling.]

I don't think you should.

Tough.

[:>]

[His voice rumbles.]

You keep making light of this, and I don't like it.

[At least he's being honest, which is... an improvement.]

[She tilts her head, bird-like.] Make light of what? [Of him running away? Of him not explaining the danger he sees that makes him run? She needs more words to understand.]

Of—

[He shakes his head; she needs more words, and he's having trouble finding the right ones.]

Of me needing to leave. Of the things I've done. Of these two Souls in me, and of what I might do to you and not even realize because I'm so hungry I can't think straight. The fact I can just... come in here in the dead of the night and you don't seem to worry one bit.

[So 'everything,' maybe.]

I have no need to worry. You will not harm me. Even were you or your natural souls to try in earnest, my magic has returned. I could hold you back with little effort. [Even monster dogs are made of water.

But, there was something that he said there, something new...] What have you done previously, to think you may harm me?

I don't—

[He doesn't want to talk about it; he never wants to talk about it. He's dodged it time and time again with her, and it's only gotten worse. He should start somewhere. Make an attempt, if only for her.]

I haven't slept well. Just... having a lot of bad dreams. Nightmares.

[He'll feel a bubble of hope, that at last he's letting her in, flow through their bond.]

Do you know their source?

[That bubble of hope is, unfortunately, met with guilt. Shame. Disgust.]

Yeah.

[A pause after that stellar explanation. He tries again. Fear lodges itself in his chest, though even he recognizes it as unjustified. She won't push him away, no matter how much she should. It's all the more reason he has to keep her safe. He has to keep her safe. He has to keep her safe.]

A couple of times now, over these past months, I've... been so hungry, I lost myself. Lost myself to it. Did some things. Became something worse.

[She lets out a sad, upset chirrup.] I have felt your hunger. [And felt his fear.] I wish to feed you. It can only help. [She won't claim to be able to fix it, to sate his hunger entirely, but... it should help.]

But what if I lose it when we do? Just- get started and can't stop?

[He says that worriedly, bordering on panic; it's something that's happened before, something that's a genuine concern.]

I shall fly away until you calm.

[Or swim, depending where they are.]

And what if I don't? What if I'm just- stuck like that? I wander back to town, find someone else, do something monstrous and can't stop, can't hear myself or anyone else, and I gotta- they would...

[Unused to talking so much, he runs out of steam, burying his face in his hands.]

[She swallows down her first words: it would serve them right. Those words are not helpful. And while she believes there are many in the city who deserve to be eaten, who will be most useful as fuel for those she cares about, Pom does not feel the same.] I would stop you. And then bring you to friends. We would care for you and ensure you find yourself once more.

Your self-healing is strong. Even if I must freeze and sever your extremities, you would survive and regain their use in little time.

[There's comfort in her words, as strange as some would find it. He's been given reassurances by others, told he wouldn't lose himself. It's difficult for him to believe that when it keeps happening, and none of them have stopped him, put him down the way he would were it a monster back home attacking a village, feeding on people.

And yet, there's something equally haunting about the image she paints for him: a beast caged not by bars, but mutilation. He closes his eyes behind his hands, and can see himself tied down, scales and claws and entire limbs removed, and yet he's still alive, angry, desperate. He saw far too many monsters like that in the Pens - ones he'd helped put there to be used as resources until there was nothing left.

His stomach lurches suddenly, and he's on his feet in an instant, his face pale, limbs shaking as he heads for the mirror without another word.]

Pom? [She asks as he pales, but he can't hear her. She's sure of it, their bond suddenly filled with... fear. The kind of fear that nearly has a taste it's so instinctual, so primal.] Pom! [She darts after him, clinging to his clothing once more.]

[Pom can't hear Northly through the sound of memory, so loud and clear and horrifying that it instills fresh panic in him. The groan of beasts reverberates around him, and he sees creatures kept and tormented for the profit their parts could bring; he recalls their labored breaths, their desperate cries, their death throes as he carved them. They weren't living things, a part of the world around him; they were only money to be made. When he was young, he'd been proud of being called a monster himself, but now, as he sees himself among them, still locked in the cage where he was kept when he couldn't be controlled... it terrifies him.

And for a moment, he can't help but consider that maybe he belongs there.

Pom wrenches himself from Northly's grasp, her confusion battering against his terror as he steps through the mirror and back into his room. He almost stops, his eyes lingering on Purl's doll on the bed - his most precious possession. He can't stay, can't think for another moment on her, lest he ponder how ashamed she might be with him now. As his mind paints him a picture, he makes for the window, sliding out of it, skidding down the wall to the street below - and then, he starts running.]

[She flies after him, shifting to keep up, her clothing discarded with no time to rearrange her inventory.

His new soul is faster than she is, but she tries to keep up. Coating the ground under his feet with slick ice, she hauls the water in his body back towards her. Through her own rising distress, she tries to send reassurance and calm towards him, certainty that he is whole and he is a person, not a monster.]

[As his two feet nearly slide out from under him, Pom Shifts wildly, the addition of two more giving him enough grip to stay upright. Despite the pull against him — within him — he lunges forward with unearthly speed, appearing to blink out of existence for split-seconds at a time as he tears his way through the streets and toward the woods. He doesn't know where he's going, or what he'll do, or even why he's still running; he just knows he needs to get away from everything, everyone, even himself.

Unfortunately, weeks of hunger have taken a toll on not just his temperament and self-control, but on his energy and stamina, as well: as soon as the treeline thickens enough to hide him from above, he slows to half his pace, then to nothing at all, wheezing as his legs collapse beneath him.

He still feels sick, though he can't tell what it's from any longer: the hunger, or the images still flashing in his mind as he closes his eyes.]

[Those split seconds are nothing she hasn't seen before and though it takes effort to stay calm and reorient herself, she does, sending as much love and calm as she can manage while tearing after him.

What helps in the end is the soft glow of his souls. The three of them in one body is hard to mistake, particularly not outside of the city. Still, she's nearly as rundown as he is by the time he stops. She drops on top of him, her many skittering legs clutching for his fur.]

[Pom barely registers that she's clinging to him, but when he does, he makes the effort to stand again. He doesn't recognize her Shift, and it only adds to his disorientation as he shakes, trying to dislodge her.

Unfortunately, with as much as he's trembling, said shake is fairly weak. He tries his voice, but his words are as unsteady as the rest of him.]

I feel sick.

[At least he's talking again.]

[With eight — ten? more? — legs, he'd have to do a lot better than that to dislodge her. Plus, she's been overcoming his attempts to make her fall practically since she got here, this is easy mode. She peeps sharply.] You have not eaten. Of course you feel sick. [But despite the sharpness of her tone, she resumes her push of comfort and warmth through their connection.]

Not that.

[Well, it's not entirely that, but she's not wrong: the fact he hasn't eaten well in ages is a part of what's making him ill. His form collapses, figuratively and physically, as he Shifts back into his normal form - well, what counts for normal these days. He's still pale, still sweating, still shaking, but at least he's not running anymore.

Not that the desire isn't there. He swallows hard, catching his breath little by little.]

Don't... don't.

[That he shifts back and is still filled with fear worries her. She stays shifted, but presses herself into his arms, being as delicate as she can manage with the talons at the end of her legs, hoping he will take comfort in her fluffy feathers. He does like to touch birds, after all.]

I will not do anything you do not wish me to do. [Unless it's for his own good. But that isn't the reassurance he needs in this moment.]

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