[P] it's an old story, really

[Antiope]

when the shadows come
and cover the horizon
i will be the one to
slay all the giants

She is busy trying to find the snake beneath his skin when he asks, “What do you think that suggests about our meeting?” Oh, if only she knew. When Isra first met Raum, could the unicorn have known that he would try to kill her? Kidnap her, enslave an entire kingdom and nearly start a nationwide war?

She smiles, and it is sharp, sharp, sharp, like the lioness in her bones is bearing its teeth instead of a woman. “I suppose only time will tell,” the sovereign suggests, but she wants him to know it’s a warning. She wants him to know that she will be waiting, if he comes with sharpness and darkness and serpents pouring from every seam of him.

The dragon scales the cliffside, reaching toward them. As the man turns toward the creature so does she, getting at last a better glance at it. Not the first dragon she has seen, but far more foreboding than Fable alone by the obsidian color of its scales. Idly, she fingers the sharp edge of her axe, blacker than black too, and kissed by gods.

“Damascus,” Antiope acknowledges the dragon and notices its opalescent eyes. She does not tell him that he has been gifted with a powerful and grand bonded, as judging by his tone it would not matter to him anyway. The being's cries, though, they burn inside her. “He seems to be in anguish.”

“Speaking.”

∞ | @Vercingtorix c;