You wrap your name tight around my ribs
And keep me warm. I was born for you.
Above, below, by you, by you surrounded.
She tumbles through the dark. And keep me warm. I was born for you.
Above, below, by you, by you surrounded.
(So dark. Gods. It’s so, so dark.)
From one flickering, eidolic pool of oily lamplight to the next, in lurching, hitched steps. Every couple of minutes, she throws herself against a rough stone wall or cracked marble sculpture to breath. To breath. For the first time in… ilinaa el’ariiff—forever—she breaths. She breaths in dust and bone and centuries-old air. She breaths out a viperous coil of sputtered curse words, each more vibrant and inventive than the next.
‘A-a-arjun! St-t-top right t-t-here y-y-you S-Solis-d-d-damned f-f-fiend!’
It echoes.
It tells Cyrra just how big their tiny hell had really been all along.
She sucks in air and turns to squint into the charnel void—
‘D-d-don’t’t you m-m-move. Y-you’ll p-p-pay f-for w-what you’ve d-d-done.’
The Viper Slayer does not flinch at what she sees, though it turns her stomach. Her nostrils clench tightly, ears pinning back tight against her crest, against the mess of dusty hair and burnished copper rings. Her eyes narrow in venomous distrust, muscles coiled like serpent-things, tight under the pale horsehair and grime. He is thin, each bone making itself known in lewd detail below the paper-thin russet of his dull pelt. He shakes, each and every restive inch of him. The spaces around his eyes are uncomfortably sunken, shaded in dark, bruise-purple, hemming a wide, demented gaze.
(I know you… Solis help me… I know you, brother.)
He stumbles closer, breaching the sill of flame-light. His breath is rank. It smells like mothballs and rot. He looks diseased. Why does he look diseased; why can’t he see who she is and is not. Cyrra snorts and straights herself, a Herculean labour itself, her shoulders and knees aching from disuse. At that moment, her hard, searching eyes finally catch the violent glint of rust-worn iron in the light, a proffered promise left between them. Her breath slows. Her heart quickens. Her eyes fall on him, lips twitching. “Step away…”
His lips quiver.
He’s crying. Tears trail down his gaunt cheeks as he takes a step closer, the rusted dagger coming to press against her pale throat just above the twisted copper of her neckpiece. ‘T-t-the Arete w-w-ill h-h-av-v-e their r-r-revenge y-y-you b-bast-t-tard t-traitor!’
She swallows. The tip of the blade digs into the bulge as she does, drawing blood down her throat. “Don’t do this...” But she can see. She can see it in his eyes, the way they waver between here and there—between this and the next. The price he has paid for his—their—nemesis’ treachery has been grave. She watches as his thighs twitch, eyes pass to the place where his blade kisses her flesh open.
She yanks the dagger, less gracefully than she is used to, from his telekinetic grasp and plunges it into his left eye until the hilt meets the brow bone. He shudders and heaves forward as the Arete pulls it loose and steps back, his body collapsing at her feet.
Silence.
Dark.
(Halim. That’s it. Your name was Halim.)
She stares into that stygian depth, blood spattered hot and thick across her chest and forearms. She lets the dagger go absently. It clatters to the ground beside Halim and the nauseating, metallic twang echoes into eternity.
@Zayir
MINOR POWERPLAYING IS PERMITTED
