The Final Hunt

The night is damp and cool, as it always is in this place. The earth smells of growing things, moss and lichen, worms, grass still wet with the evening's rain. The air is clean, crisp, and carries with it the scent of prey and predator. I am hunting you, as I have always hunted you.

I've taken many conquests in these forests, speared them, gorged myself on them, and left them largely behind. Some I have taken as trophies, captured a piece for rememberance, some momento to hold as I drifted off to sleep. I recall them sometimes, sweet fragrances, succulent flesh, the writhing way they moved on the end of my weapon. All of them different. All of them the same. None of them you.

I have stalked and killed, but I feel as if you are the only one I've ever hunted. The only one really worth it, the only one that brings that exhiliration, that addictive, heady mix of anticipation and trepidation. I catch your scent here and there, as unmistakable as it is unidentifiable, or a glimpse of you far ahead, racing through the underbrush, skyclad and glistening with a thin sheen of sweat. Then you're gone.

Yet, I feel closer than ever. Sometimes, I think this might just be a game to you. You tease me with those hints of your presence, drawing me in, feeding off the way I crave you. Perhaps you'll feed on me, if ever we meet. A veritable venus mantrap, a cocaine Aphrodite.

Sometimes I wonder which of us is predator and which of us is prey.

I know, in the deepest, nameless parts of me, that I'll catch you someday. That when I do, I'll throw down my spear and take you, be it nestled in the boughs of the mighties tree, or in the fine-grain sand on the shore of a lake, or in the grass still holding the evening's rain. My hands will rake and dig into your thighs, your hips, your breasts, your throat, and I will explore every inch of you. I will come to know and memorize every curve, every line, every dip and rise and subtle change of your body. I will commit to memory your voice, your need, your desire. You will be my last, one way or another.

I will pour every sweetness in me onto your skin, press every tender word that could fall from this tongue into you, and lavish you with all affection and want. You will be sun and moon, stars and worlds. You will be the seas, the trees, the cities of man and the plains of my dearest gods. You will be my Valhalla, here in Midgaard. I will hear your name sung on every branch of Yggdrasil, whsipered on every breeze, every breath from every creature that roams this infant earth. You will be my greatest treasure, my greatest pleasure, and perhaps, still, the death of me.

If that isn't love, then I hope I will never know love.

Intrinsically Yours,
-S.R.