Dominance

Chapter 6: Like A Filthy Princess

The escapees continued their quick pace, gradually descending into thicker, lusher groves of trees, until Twister stopped abruptly. Without warning he sharply bowed his head down low, sending Sara tumbling off of him and into the dirt. Her mouth met the carpet of soil and flora sheddings, which caused her to recoil back upwards in an instant. Disgusted, Sara spat out a mouthful of leaf litter and rubbed her throbbing chin.

"Ow!" she said despite not actually feeling sore, just surprised by the sudden ejection of her ride. "Great. Now I have a disfigured forehead and a disfigured chin," she mumbled sarcastically.

Sparkie didn't hesitate to help Sara up. Without a word, he effortlessly lifted her back to her feet by rocking her back and then tugging her up by her forearms. He pulled some foliage out of Sara's rather windswept hair and then stared into her face. "Your chin is only a little red. And your forehead is normal." He told her.

"What do you mean?" Sara responded with a flush to her cheeks. "There's a big ugly scrape."

Sara softly touched where the wound was. But there was no sting. No pain.
She peered at the palms of her hands. The burns had almost completely vanished, only the slightest of discolouration remained.

"What the-?"

Sparkie shrugged. "I guess it healed."

"People don't heal that fast!" She exclaimed, dumbfounded.

Sparkie tilted his head as he gently lifted one of her arms. With his opposite hand, he intertwined his fingers with hers and then gripped down onto her palm. Her hands were petite in comparison.

Sara stared at the interlocked digits. "What are you doing?" she asked flatly.

"You can hold my hand now." He responded with a smile.

Sara frowned, confused.

"Back at the laboratory, when you were in the cell blocks, you wanted to hold hands."

"Oh." Sara recalled the moment she had poked her fingers through the side of his cage. "No. I just wanted to touch your tail."

Sara's face flushed red after she said it and she snatched her hand back. Twister clicked his tongue distastefully behind her, but Sparkie's face remained neutral. His tail curved and he slightly bent down to grip it. It looked strained being held up at the sharp angle to the side of him.

"You can touch it if you want to," he said indifferently.

Sara gawked at him as he offered the fluffy appendage.

"Er. No. That's okay." She said awkwardly. Her embarrassment deepened and she kept talking in an attempt to curb it. "Um... It kinda looks uncomfortable being held like that. I thought it would be more-" Sara made a wavy motion with her hand to try to empathise what she meant. "-flexible?"

"I'm not a capuchin." He answered, his voice still neutral.

"A what?" Sara blinked.

"A capuchin. It's a type of monkey. They have prehensile tails. It can curl around things and pick up objects."

"You know what a monkey is? Specific types of monkeys?" She asked, surprised. Sara had seen monkeys at the zoo, but lacked the knowledge to identify them into separate species. She expected his knowledge of such things to be limited having presumably lived in a cage.

"Yes." he shrugged. "The laboratory had them often."

Twister pushed his way between the two and Sara took a wary big step back to avoid being shoved by his beastly frame.

"We don't have time for your mindless chatter!" Twister suddenly snarled, agitated. Sara flinched at Twister's frosty stare and the lingering rumble of a growl. His size, his teeth, his tone, everything was intimidating about beast-form Twister.