NOVEL WEB Chapter 33: Bloody Hands
Feeling a little cold on her back Hannah nuzzled deeper into the warmth that was in front of her. Her barely awake brain only desired to go back to sleep and stay like that for a good while. The warmth around her shifted and pulled her in deeper and Hannah couldn’t help but smile gently as her tail wagged lightly. Who didn’t love warm morning cuddles? If only every morning could be like this, but Hannah had to work. Not only that but she didn’t have anyone to do that with. It would be nice if she could cuddle with Rayne again. Wait, if she had no one to cuddle with, then who was she cuddling now?
The realization hit Hannah hard and her yellow eyes shot open. The sight of Rayne’s sleeping face was the first thing Hannah saw, and she was a little surprised at just how close it was to hers. The shock stayed with Hannah for a minute as she just watched Rayne sleep. She looked peaceful and calm, maybe more than Hannah had ever seen her. It was kind of cute in a way and that thought helped calm down the shock. It didn’t fully help though because Hannah still struggled to remember how they had gotten here.
Hannah remembered asking Rayne to stay just a little bit longer even though her mistress was tired, but she didn’t really remember much after that. Crying hysterically had taken a lot out of Hannah and she had most certainly been tired because of it. That wouldn’t be the first time that she had cried herself to sleep, and not the first time she had done it in someone’s arms, not including the other night while being afraid of the storm. Had they both fallen asleep without realizing it? Clearly they had.
A sudden spike of fear ran through the fox at the realization that she didn’t know what happened to her pendant. Quickly Hannah did realize that even though her arm was wrapped around Rayne, her hand was still closed tight around the wooden pendant. Relief washed over Hannah as she thought about what to do with it. If she wanted to put it away she would have to get out of bed and she didn’t want to do that yet. She didn’t want to unwrap herself from the comfort of Rayne’s arms. Maybe it would be okay to wait just a little bit.
It took a little while of waiting and watching Rayne sleep for Hannah to realize it was still early in the morning. Earlier than the normal time she would get up. She didn’t even hear anyone out in the hallway, so it must still be pretty early. Would it be rude to wake Rayne earlier than she would normally get up? Hannah knew Eda didn’t wake the lady till after the servants breakfast so this would be quite the early morning for Rayne. Deep down Hannah knew she didn’t want to wake Rayne but she wasn’t sure it was appropriate to stay like this with her. Also what would the rest of the staff say if they saw Rayne leaving Hannah’s room first thing in the morning.
A little bit of worry built inside Hannah as she continued to look at Rayne's face. What should she do? Her eyes studied the lady’s face as if hoping it would give her the answer but it didn’t. What it did do was cause her eyes to glance over to the lady’s ear. Human ears were such a strange shape. Kin ears also came in all shapes and sizes as well, just not that small. What did it feel like? It had to be hard to some degree, but it also looked soft. Hannah bit her lip in thought as some part of her did think about touching it while she slept. That wasn’t right of her though. Touching someone else’s ears while they slept was very wrong. Rayne couldn’t consent to that. It didn’t stop Hannah from thinking about it though.
Without thinking about it Hannah found her arm slowly slipping away from Rayne’s side, and pulled up to her chest with her other hand. She clutched the pendant to her heart as she stayed in Rayne’s arms. Would it wake Rayne? What if Hannah was just really quick about it? Hannah bit her lip, internally telling herself that this was a bad idea, but found her hand already moving. With slow and delicate movements, Hannah raised her hand just above the side of Rayne’s head. There was hesitation as her fingers hung above the lady’s ear. This was really wrong but Hannah couldn’t stop herself.
Hannah’s eyes wandered over Rayne’s face checking again to make sure she was asleep. Seeing that she was Hannah looked back up at her ear. Slowly Hannah reached down and touched the top of Rayne’s ear. It was harder than she thought it would be, though it was soft at the same time. There was far less give to it than ears like her own but kin ears were meant to move around. As far as Hannah was aware, human’s couldn’t move their ears in any way, which was a strange thing to Hannah. From what she had heard, elf ears were similar to humans, just longer and pointed at the end, but elves could still move them to a degree. Books had described them as expressive, not practical like a kins, but Hannah had always assumed the same could have been said about humans, up until she met one.
She pushed down on the ear and felt the resistance of it naturally moving back to its normal place. It was such a strange feeling but Hannah did find that she liked it in an odd way. Running her finger down the side she slowly found that it got softer the further she went down till eventually she touched the lobe. It felt soft and squishy with no rigidness at all. That also happened to be the place where Rayne had a small stud earring. Small enough that it didn’t really get in the way of Hannah feeling and very lightly pinching the lobe.
Do humans have much feelings in their ears? Clearly they weren’t sensitive enough to stop them from piercing them, even if from what Hannah saw it didn’t appear to be incredibly common. Even when there were humans with them it was only ever women. How much did they feel when they pierced them compared to a kin? It was rare for a kin to pierce an ear. It did happen. Elaine actually had one in each ear, but she was always so brave and daring. They weren’t the only painful piercings she had either. Hannah wasn’t that brave so she had only ever had them in her lip, and even those had hurt when going in.
The fox’s fingers left the lobe of Rayne’s ear and slowly slid their way back up the edge. Piercing here had to hurt more right? Strangely enough, as Hannah’s fingers ran up the side Rayne’s ear started to turn red. Was it normal for human ears to turn red when touching them? It also started to feel warm which was also interesting. Hannah’s ears did feel hot at times but it didn’t just happen because they were touched. It took a second to notice that not only Rayne’s ear was turning red. Following the redness down Rayne’s face brought Hannah’s eyes to the lady’s cheeks, which then led her to look up at Rayne’s eyes. She found them open.
Deciding who looked more shocked in the moment was a close competition between the fox and lady. Both laid there with their eyes wide open, staring at the others while Hannah continued to touch Rayne’s ear, albeit motionless now. Both were holding their breath as they waited for the other to do something.
Rayne’s brain wasn’t functioning well at the moment. Waking up to find Hannah’s face this close to hers was one thing, but waking up to Hannah actively touching her was something completely different. It was like a dream come true, but an embarrassing one for some reason. Maybe that had something to do with Rayne having some knowledge of what touching someone’s ears meant to beastkin, or maybe it was the fact that Rayne found herself enjoying this a good bit. Both emotionally and surprisingly physically. Her ears weren’t something anyone but herself really touched. Eda might brush up against her ears when doing her hair in the morning but it wasn’t really touching them. There was maybe also something about the way Hannah was touching her ear that built up such a strong reaction inside Rayne. Her touches were extremely gentle while clearly still being exploratory. It was so similar to how Rayne had touched Hannah’s ears that first night.
Hannah’s heart felt like it had stopped as she stared back into those gray eyes. Not only that but it also felt like her brain had stopped as her finger still lingered on Rayne’s ear, feeling the warmth of it only growing. So much warmth was also flooding Hannah’s face at the moment that it almost felt like it was going to burn. Suddenly that horrid voice was screaming inside of Hannah, telling her that she had just done something terrible, both in kin culture but also in human. That she deserved punishment for what she had just done. Her hand pulled away from Rayne’s ear with haste and brought it to cover her face with her other. Fear and shame gripped at Hannah’s heart as she started to cower in Rayne’s arms. “I-I-I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Watching her fox suddenly pull away from her in fear was enough to break Rayne out of her daze but threw her into a panic. “N-no, no, it’s alright,” Rayne said feeling almost helpless as she watched Hannah fall deeper into fear. The lady’s arms tightened around Hannah and tried to pull her closer but the vixen resisted against her.
“That was wrong of me.” Hannah muttered more to herself than Rayne. The voice inside of her grew more hateful and started to sound more like her own voice the more it repeated that she had done a terrible thing over and over again. Frustration and anger at herself built up inside as she felt Rayne’s arms try to tighten around her. Without even thinking her body resisted the pull to comfort. She didn’t deserve it. She didn’t deserve forgiveness or the kindness Rayne showed her. All she deserved was punishment.
Rayne had no care for if what Hannah had done was right or wrong, she just wanted her to calm down. Calm down first, then they could deal with what Hannah had done, even if Rayne already knew she was fine with it. After all she had been doing the same to Hannah for a week now, granted that she hadn’t played with Hannah’s ears last night. Hannah deserved to touch her ears at least once and that thought made the heat in the lady’s face linger. “It’s fine, Hannah,” Rayne said, unsure of if she should keep trying to pull Hannah into her since her fox had shown resistance.
“It’s not okay.” The hands covering her face turned into fists as the anger, self hatred, and frustration continued to grow inside of Hannah. “I touched you without permission.” These feelings weren’t good and Hannah’s body seemed to only know one way to respond to them. The fox’s fingers flex ever so slightly in their balled up state and her claws pushed out of her fingers and into the palms of her hand. The sting of pain as they pierced her skin felt horrid but good at the same time. Everything inside of her was telling her that it was deserved. Pain was what she deserved. Punishment was what she needed.
“I don’t mind, Hannah, it's fine.” Her fox didn’t react and just continued to attempt to ball up herself even further. She didn’t want to force Hannah deeper into a hug, but Rayne didn’t know what else to do to help her. “Hann —” The smell of blood cut the lady off. Why was she smelling blood? Rayne’s mind started working in rapid fire as it tried to piece together why there was blood. A strong and truly genuine panic filled Rayne as she suddenly realized the smell of blood had to be coming from Hannah. “Stop!” The words came out in an aggressive but hushed voice as Rayne quickly struggled to pull one of her arms out from under Hannah. The other hand quickly grabbed at one of Hannah’s hands, pulling it away from her face as fast as she could. There was a strange relief that came with the knowledge that even though Hannah struggled against her, Rayne was still more than strong enough to force Hannah’s motions. Quickly her other hand grabbed at Hannah’s second hand and pulled it away from her face as well. There was even more relief at the sight that it wasn’t Hannah’s face that was bleeding. “Hannah, stop it!”
There were mixed emotions inside of Hannah at Rayne pulling her hands away from her face, clearly intending to stop her from continuing to hurt herself. On one hand she didn’t want to stop, but on the other it felt good to have someone care enough to try and stop her. She wanted Rayne to fail and succeed at the same time, as she continued to struggle against the fingers desperately trying to pry open her hands.
For as small as Hannah’s hands and fingers might be, they were damn strong little things. It took genuine effort for Rayne to wiggle her own fingers under Hannah’s and force them open, causing the pendant to fall to the bed between them. It took so much effort that the lady found herself panting. Maybe the panting and the heart beating so hard it threatened to fly out of her chest were more from the fear and panic in Rayne than an actual struggle of opening the fox’s hand. Still it was a struggle and one where Rayne felt her own fingers scrape and cut themselves against the claws as she finally brute forced Hannah’s hands open. There was a sigh of relief that escaped Rayne at finally stopping Hannah, even if she felt the fox still shaking from struggling against her. After a second though it did become clear that Hannah wasn’t the one shaking, it was actually Rayne.
The horrible whirlpool of emotions inside of Hannah were paralyzing as she shamefully kept her eyes from looking at either her hands or Rayne. What had she just done? Rayne had told her not to hurt herself again and she was slicing up her own hands in front of her mistress. The shame felt like it was swallowing her whole as tears started to stream down her face. Why was Hannah like this? Why did she keep doing stuff like this to herself every time she got frustrated and upset with herself? It was like this all her life and she hated it so much.
Even though she had stopped Hannah, the panic inside of Rayne wasn’t fully going away. Was touching her ears while she slept really such a terrible thing that Hannah felt like there was no other option than to hurt herself? Yes, it did feel a little embarrassing to Rayne but she didn’t really have much care. The lady would always let Hannah touch her. Rayne looked down at their hands and found a decent amount of blood on them. Panic continued to linger inside of her as she looked at how much blood there was. It looked bad to Rayne at the moment but there was a more rational part of her that recognized it looked far worse than it really was. Still Rayne gripped Hannah’s hands tight, doing her best to stop the bleeding. “P-please don’t do that again,” the lady said in a shaky voice, finally looking away from their hands and to Hannah’s face.
Hannah’s eyes closed tight as more tears continued to run down her face. She wanted to say that she wouldn’t but she couldn’t say it. Both because her throat was closed tight as well as that she didn’t believe she would stop. At some point or another Hannah knew she would have another breakdown. It didn’t happen too often, but it had happened all her life and she always acted the same way when it did happen. There was always a pit of shame that consumed her whole that made her so mad and frustrated with herself that her body just seemed to take action without her intention. That action was always hurting herself in some way.
Rayne didn’t know what to do. The thoughts and feelings inside of her were so loud and conflicting. She wanted to assure Hannah that everything was alright but she always wanted to express how not okay that had just made the lady feel. She wanted to be mad at her fox for hurting herself but she also wanted to just squeeze her tight and tell her that she loved her. Tears were starting to form in her own eyes as Hannah continued to cry as well. At some point after what could have been seconds or minutes of the two of them just sitting there, Rayne’s compassion won over all of the other feelings. Her hands brought Hannah’s to her chest, squeezing them both into her even as she let go of one hand. With a hand now free Rayne reached out and pulled Hannah into her, squeezing the other woman tight against her. The fox’s face buried itself into the base of Rayne’s neck as Rayne looked down to bury her own face into the top of Hannah’s head, putting the lady’s face between those large ears.
The crying only got worse when Rayne pulled Hannah into the lady, though she didn’t sob or make any noise. The tears burned down her face and rubbed up against Rayne’s neck and soaked the expensive clothes she was wearing. Coming down from an episode like that was a hard and slow process but being hugged by Rayne and holding her hand was deeply helpful. Hannah’s hands squeezed at Rayne’s still feeling the now cooling but sticky blood on them. Hannah hated what she had just done not really because it had hurt her, but because Rayne had seen her like that. Having people see her breakdown like that typically only made it worse, and the embarrassment she felt afterwards was horrible.
It felt like there were no right words for Rayne to say right now. Even the three little words Rayne so desperately wanted Hannah to hear didn’t feel like it would actually help Hannah at this moment. Instead of speaking, Rayne just kept her face down on the top of Hannah’s head. Even her lips were pressed up against her fox’s head, but it wasn’t really in a kiss. Rayne just wanted to be close to her and quite literally pushing her face up against Hannah felt like the best way to do that. There was a little part of her that actually wanted to make it so it was a recognizable kiss on the head to Hannah, but the lady elected to just squeeze Hannah’s hands harder.