Words are still not coming to him. Not easily. He runs on want and need and the basest drive of life.

Persist.

When Thandi speaks, he can’t understand. He can’t form the words or make the thoughts communicable. He simply wants her and wants her to understand that she has him now, and she shall never want for anyone else.

Mother of course reminds him that there is a need for her help, but she understands that being alive means to suffer from emotion. He does not know why it is suffering but he knows that he likes it well enough. He has lots of time to get help. And he has lots of time to mate.

She seems scared, so he pulls a small word from the dark depths of memory. Safe. “Thandi safe.” He won’t hurt her. He won’t be cruel. He simply wants to be with her. She seems hesitant, so he eases her. Every step, he tries to understand desperately her desires until they both overlap and she seems to understand. They are mates now, and he will always take care of her. He will make sure she is fed and warm and happy. He will make sure she feels good and has everything she needs for kittens. He is eager to start chasing after the thing that he wanted and doesn’t remember. He is eager for her.

For a long time, he simply is.

There is a sense of loss, a sense of loneliness, but it is mollified by instinct and animal thought and Mother. A different Mother, one who wraps him up tight and holds onto him until such a time as he is ready to be born anew.

But Mother, she is sick, and she is dying. Her heart was never the kindest, but it was never hateful, not until a visitor came and he was pushed out, out, out. At the time he thought little of it. Just that he had to keep doing what instinct told him to do.

And instinct brought him to savagery, then fascination. A fascination. He watches a new visitor. The opposite of the other. A light. She is a walking light. She speaks and it tickles something in the back of his basest mind. Awakens a desire in him to… to… something. 

He wanted something once.

A long time ago.

Something he couldn’t have.

But now, here… watching her. He has it.