Body bound and tethered tight.

Flesh becomes a swaddling she cannot escape.

An unwelcome cocoon of skin that feels his gaze

Like the too bright sun, painful, burning.

He knows things,

Knows her horrors

Because they have indwelled him too.

A word, a name, a moment,

Is all it takes to overwhelm,

A tidal surge of the scent of sand remembered.

Collapsing, he catches her, holds her in gentle caress,

Together reliving the moments before her nightmare began.

To cradle her body from falling,

To touch the moon flesh of his mate,

He volunteers his blood and pain to her brothers.

Anything to be close to her, he bleeds.

"I will never bleed again."

Her vow is in vain,

As her scars bleed grief invisible

Through their bond into his soul,

To be shared by his horrified heart

With the remembered scent of sand.