etro --
in the hushing dusk, under a swollen silver moon,
I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom
She breathes in Fear and it mutates in her mouth, transforms in her lungs—because what Etro had always feared was not the monsters that lurked in the day. She did not quiver when she pressed her muzzle to his blood-soaked shoulder and it came away red. She did not shake when her mother sent demons through the sand or when her father beat heavy dragon wings through the air so that it felt of war in the desert. She did not fear when heat scorched her throat. She did not fear when her belly twisted from hunger or her limbs ached from exertion. She did not fear the blade against her throat—the arrow in her heart.
The scene around changes, alters, transforms ever so slightly—the edges fuzzy and her balance unstable. Her mouth runs dry, tongue becoming heavy, pulse fluttering in her veins. He is a Monster. She knows it in the way that she knows how to pull air into her lungs and how she knew to search for the taste of sweet grass as a babe. She is alive. He is a Monster. Fear lives in her, but it is not Fear of him. She cannot see him past the image her mind projects over him: a different monster with a different name. He is Kingslay with his gore and his flat eyes and his dead smile. He is Kingslay and he is burning, burning, burning.
He is Kingslay, and he is leaving.
The once-desert princess, royalty of a land no more, feels her heart thrashing against her ribcage with all of the ferocity of a caged bird. She takes another step forward, desperation clawing against her. His power was not particularly strong here, muted and muffled by her presence, but it was enough. It was a match, and she in her loneliness was already dry kindling. She lights up with her Fear that was not fear.
“No,” she practically sobs, broken against the back of her throat. “No, oh god. Please, no.” She pushes forward, seeing him leave, clawing out for his presence. She is against him, flesh against flesh, and his skin is not cool but hot, feverish, as if the flames had just left. “Don’t leave,” she whimpers, constellations exploding in her chest as she goes blind with her need. Her mouth reaches over and touches his skin, against his jaw, down his neck. But it doesn’t help. Her mind practically fractures with the reality and fiction, both Pollock and Kingslay dancing in her vision as she trembles against him. “No.”
She strains against the pull of his barriers and then, finally, collapses against them, falling into the undertow.
-- vanquish and yael's trait-negating desert princess --
