D'ye Ken That The Only Time I

Torn Between The Impulse To Stroke His Head, And The Urge To Cave It In With A Rock, I Did Neither.

I Was Crying And Laughing, Snuffing Tears And Blood, Bumping At Him With My Bound Hands, Trying Awkwardly To Thrust Them At Him So That He Could Cut The Rope. He Quit Grappling, And Clutched Me So Hard Against Him That I Yelped In Pain As My Face Was Pressed Against His Plaid. He Was Saying Something Else, Urgently, But I Couldn’t Manage To Translate It. Energy Pulsed Through Him, Hot And Violent, Like The Current In A Live Wire, And I Vaguely Realized That He Was Still Almost Berserk; He Had No English.

This Was Nonsense, He Thought. The Need Of Her Was A Physical Thing, Like The Thirsty Of A Sailor Becalmed For Weeks On The Sea. He'd Felt The Need Before, Often, Often, In Their Years Apart. But Why Now? She Was Safe; He Knew Where She Was - Was It Only The Exhaustion Of The Past Weeks And Days, Or Perhaps The Weakness Of Creeping Age That Made His Bones Ache, As Though She Had In Fact Been Torn From His Body, As God Had Made Eve From Adam's Rib?

For So Many Years, For So Long, I Have Been So Many Things, So Many Different Men. But Here," He Said, So Softly I Could Barely Hear Him, "here In The Dark, With You… I Have No Name.

Highlanders Make The Truest Friends-if Only Because They Make The Worst Enemies.