Worse, you understand me. See, I don't deal well with that. The shadowkin within doesn't want to be understood, recognized, addressed, unless it's by someone willing to Hunt by her side or fight her, make it a battle, a contest, anything more honorable than this frustrating half-surrender. I understand you, too. I know the things that drive your interest. I know I can't give most of them to you, and while I hate it, I can accept it. What infuriates me is that the things I could give, you spurn. So damned independant.

So damned beautiful.

Knowing you're prowling through the corridors of that pretty head is enough to make my blood race. Actually seeing you, hearing that heated, hellspawned voice, watching the flickering of as-yet-uninked patterns flow over your skin... gods, it's enough to drive me utterly mad. I want you, on one side of the whip or the other. I want you to drive me, to stay in my thoughts as a proper muse rather than being a guilty thought I have to shove away. I want the stories that rush to spill from my fingers when I look at you. I want the images that your voice, half-heard, draw into my thoughts and vision. I want the music that I hear watching you move. I want the passion, the fire, the heady flood of inspiration, and I know you could fill those wants.

Does it get me anything? No. Not ever. And I know it won't, I know that this, like everything else I've ever wanted to say to you, will go unsaid, ignored, never answered. I say it because I can't help letting it pour out and I can't keep silent. I say it here, because to say it to your face is still beyond my courage. Here, at least, I know it won't ever reach your gaze.