i've lost the parts of me that make me whole
He sees a girl made from hardened steel, molded and quenched into a frightful weapon of war. But on this night, Teiran feels strangely like glass, spiderwebbed through with cracks. There is a shivering dragging its way across her skin, but it appears that he does not see it. Whether because of the dark, or whether he simply doesn’t look for it she doesn’t know. Regardless, the soldier finds herself grateful for it. And for awhile they just stare at each other. No words, no sound but their breathing.
She takes a few steps further into the Colosseum, and her mind remembers wobbling, weak legs. At first Teiran doesn’t enter the inner ring. She pauses among the stands, among the sandstone columns and arches that reach up and up and up. How can a place sprung from the cliffs of Elatus in mere hours be so ancient, with crevices and cracks lining the walls, pieces missing here and there, sand long settled on surfaces? She still has not fought within these walls, has not put to test their timeworn history. One day, perhaps.
She can’t be sure if the shouts in her ears are the memories of this place in its prime, or the screams of the dying. She blinks, and if there is another fine crack in her surface she doesn’t draw attention to it. No, her sage green eyes do not leave the amethyst-eyed man, her caution never resting even has he glances over her attire. He, unlike her, is unarmed, even despite the horn on his forehead. She has no fear of him. She has no fear—but then why, for a moment, do his eyes looks pitch as as a moonless, starless night?
When he eyes up her weapons, she grasps the left dagger and pulls it from its sheath. The gold snake coils around the obsidian blade grip, holding a gem in its mouth the same color as her eyes. For a moment she just holds it, balancing it in her hand, watching the dim light reflect off the serpent scales.
Then, she throws it.
“Catch,” is the only warning Jahin has to prepare himself if he wants to stop the spinning weapon from accidentally stabbing him. There’s no real force behind the throw, no intention for it to hit. He could simply step back and allow it to clatter to the sandstone floor in front of him. She hopes he won’t
Why did she throw it? Teiran can’t say except that, maybe, she hopes he will give her a fight to stop her from thinking about a girl with hollow eyes. Maybe he will give her a fight, and it will bring back the hard steel veneer of her that is cracking and bending under pressure. Maybe he will give her a fight, and it will make her feel alive. She nears him again, her steps slow and measured. There are no wobbling knees here, no dying breaths, and she pushes back her hood, letting it pool about her shoulders.
And then she gives him the only name she has ever known, while her mind whispers. ‘Who are you? Who are you?’
“Teiran.”
@Jahin
