He could see the shock in his friend's eyes, the haze of disbelief that questioned the truth of what - who - stood before him. Rory's response felt almost mechanical, a reflex more than something he truly meant, and Jigano stood poised to...
To what? To run, if the hunter rejected this form? To flow back into his foxform, small and unthreatening, and hope that Rory would let things go back to how they had been before? To beg him to wait and listen to words that only a fox could say, that human language had no context for?
Tense, frightened in a way different than he had been out in the dark, but no less powerfully so, he waited for the blond hunter to accept or deny him, heart pounding so loudly he didn't know if he would even hear his friend if Rory spoke.
No words. But then, words had never been their primary means of communication, had they? But Rory reached for him, and Jigano let himself be pulled by shaking fingers as strong and inexorable as a riptide, pulling him out to sea and down, down into blue eyes that could drown him. He caught himself with one hand on the bed, the other resting lightly across the hunter's body on his hip.
He should have flinched away from the fingers in his hair, an intimacy he had allowed no one since he'd left childhood innocence behind. Should have... but how could he? It was Rory touching him, as he had been doing barely a minute before. Rory, who had long since earned the right. Who, of all his friends, didn't know the mask of the man, but had seen through to the heart of the fox.
Jigano took a breath, and on the exhale made a leap of faith. He closed his eyes, bowing his head as he tilted into Rory's touch, and he let the masks fall away, so far as they could in this changed form. His ears lengthened, growing white and furry and shifting up higher on his skull as his nails thickened and hardened to short claws on the tips of fingers. Though he had closed them, he felt his eyes shift as well, iris expanding to overtake sclera and pupil elongating vertically. His muzzle didn't appear, but he hardly noticed. It had been a decade since he'd last walked in his own skin outside of the spiritual realm, and he had forgotten much of what it felt like.
It felt vulnerable. A secret that he had been raised to hide by cautious parents, immigrants in a land where their kind were uncommon. Masquerading as a human had saved his life more than once, and the lives of his friends. Even though Caido was different, a lifetime of caution was difficult to discard in a single season. But it was the only gift he had left to give to his friend, even with the bleak knowledge that the native-born mage might not be able to understand it.
But... so long as that gentle touch connected them, there was still hope.
To what? To run, if the hunter rejected this form? To flow back into his foxform, small and unthreatening, and hope that Rory would let things go back to how they had been before? To beg him to wait and listen to words that only a fox could say, that human language had no context for?
Tense, frightened in a way different than he had been out in the dark, but no less powerfully so, he waited for the blond hunter to accept or deny him, heart pounding so loudly he didn't know if he would even hear his friend if Rory spoke.
No words. But then, words had never been their primary means of communication, had they? But Rory reached for him, and Jigano let himself be pulled by shaking fingers as strong and inexorable as a riptide, pulling him out to sea and down, down into blue eyes that could drown him. He caught himself with one hand on the bed, the other resting lightly across the hunter's body on his hip.
He should have flinched away from the fingers in his hair, an intimacy he had allowed no one since he'd left childhood innocence behind. Should have... but how could he? It was Rory touching him, as he had been doing barely a minute before. Rory, who had long since earned the right. Who, of all his friends, didn't know the mask of the man, but had seen through to the heart of the fox.
Jigano took a breath, and on the exhale made a leap of faith. He closed his eyes, bowing his head as he tilted into Rory's touch, and he let the masks fall away, so far as they could in this changed form. His ears lengthened, growing white and furry and shifting up higher on his skull as his nails thickened and hardened to short claws on the tips of fingers. Though he had closed them, he felt his eyes shift as well, iris expanding to overtake sclera and pupil elongating vertically. His muzzle didn't appear, but he hardly noticed. It had been a decade since he'd last walked in his own skin outside of the spiritual realm, and he had forgotten much of what it felt like.
It felt vulnerable. A secret that he had been raised to hide by cautious parents, immigrants in a land where their kind were uncommon. Masquerading as a human had saved his life more than once, and the lives of his friends. Even though Caido was different, a lifetime of caution was difficult to discard in a single season. But it was the only gift he had left to give to his friend, even with the bleak knowledge that the native-born mage might not be able to understand it.
But... so long as that gentle touch connected them, there was still hope.
