you're too young & eager to love

Posting some bits! I'm not unhappy with this, per say, but I also wasn't sure what tone or mood I wanted for the overall piece. I still want to do the whole Roman-pack-fight eventually.

The conversation is supposed to be between Roman and Knight, but it sounded too formal and melodramatic.

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"He isn't blood. And he isn't family."




He is cold. With her palm pressed above his dead heart, his skin feels the way glass or metal does.





"This is not up for discussion," Anders says, using his stern voice, but there's a softness around his eyes and mouth - a questioning look - that seems to ask why. Why shouldn't it be discussed? His allegiances are to his pack; Roman is an outsider.

Lene steels his shoulders. He tilts his chin up in a gesture of defiance. He is silent and sure. The pack has not seen him in this shape for some time now. He knows their ways - how what you earn here is determined by strength and capability rather than gender, but he's always thought they listen to him more, respect him more, in the guise of a man.

Roman looks more relaxed than he should. He sits with his elbows on his knees, his shirt threadbare and cut off at the shoulders, showing the fine muscles in his arms. His hair is loose, slipping against his jaw, and when Lene catches his eye, Roman grins - his teeth are very white in the darkness.





"You know you don't smell like anything? Nothing. You're the absence of a scent."

"So I have been told."





"You think you can win? That you can persevere? Outlast their malice by hiding in these western mountains? I know men. I've seen what they are capable of, how they hate what they do not understand, how they fear what they cannot create or control. They are weeds. They will cover everything until there is nothing left, and then they will turn on themselves. It is what they do."

"You speak like you aren't one of them."

"I haven't been for many years now."

"So why are you here? Why did you join the insurgence?"

"What else was there to do?"

"The last man standing."

"Until the sky falls."

"And her? She has enough protectors. If you're staying because you feel obligated, don't. You aren't doing her any favors. Prolonging the inevitable."