Rapture

Forgiveness

I hold on to him tight, prepared to take the whip to spare him another lash.

But pain doesn't come. His hand paused in air.

"Is something wrong, Elena?" He looks at me over his shoulder. Puzzlement in his golden eyes.

"Yes! You're hurting yourself!" I find myself yelling in his face, my arms still around his shoulders, the blood running from his back soaking warm into the front of my dress.

"That is not wrong. That was my intention." He answers.

"Why?" I almost whimper. It doesn't make any sense.

"I let you get hurt. Then scared you. Mistakes must be paid for."

"It's just a scrape on the cheek!" I frown, releasing him. "And this is scaring me more!"

"I shall continue then." His hand starts rising again.

"No!" I grab him again, pressing to his hard back. "Knowing you made the mistakes means you have suffered for them already."

"For a human it might be so, but I am invulnerable to the whirls of fate. No element or creature in creation is strong enough to hurt me. The responsibility is my own."

"You're wrong." I tell him, shaking my head from side to side. "You are on your knees whipping yourself on the account of my feelings. That means I can hurt you."

He considers that for a moment. The red of his blood slowly spreads on the silver hairs matting to his back. "You are right, I suppose."

"So now I am taking responsibility, and I say enough with that, I forgive you."

He lifts an eyebrow at me. "You forgive me?"

I nod at him, stroking the hairs sticking to the wounds, slipping them on the other side of his neck. My gut quivers as I eye the lashes across his back. The thorny whip slashed deep in his flesh, and the cuts wouldn't stop leaking.

"Now please, can you stop the bleeding?"

"Step away, I don't want to hurt you."

I comply, and he spreads his long arms to the sides. The muscles of his back stretch, and I get dizzy for a moment when the thin cuts part and I can see disturbingly deep into his flesh.

Then light shines out through the blood. Curling it up in steams as the familiar smell of burning skin spreads in the air. All the muscles in his body contract against the pain; veins and tendons I've never knew existed popping out.

He clenches his fists and holds still. The light thickens and rises, bursting across the cuts in narrow lines of golden flames. My eyes squint as if I'm trying to stare at the sun. Then the light fades, his hands dropping by his sides.

He raises to his feet, recently sealed skin marked with fire, still sizzling through the last wisps of steam.

"Let's go home."

He says, turning to me with a smile.

"I'm starving."