Simple lies, strange eyes; Ajatar, Longclaw

[Ajatar]

ajatar

devils speak of the ways in which she'll manifest;
angels bleed from the tainted touch of my caress.

She's aware of what she's doing - if not totally willingly, she lets it happen. Isn't that an admission of guilt? To let something happen, knowingly, and not intervene? Longclaw was her friend, after all, her only true friend and she was protecting him. Protecting them both, really. Who knows what this maniacal thing would do if Longclaw was otherwise occupied? Ajatar still - despite all she's seen and done - doesn't understand that she is as much a threat as any other.

Still, the anger (and fear and everything else) surges through her and keeps the pox alive, keeps it growing and swirling in the air, bursting plumes of foul disease. A few more boils erupt under her snake scales and pop off, but nothing like the racking, heaving coughs of the others. She's not immune...she's inoculated. Her disease is minimal, comparatively. She shudders until the weight of it, feeling her heart rate increase, the sweat break out along her body.

Then the other speaks, he says...he says Longclaw does...

She falters - just enough. Just enough to keep the pox from spreading as she considers. Would he do this, really? Longclaw? He doesn't even know her power! Or did he see her scales and know there was something more? She worries over this, more so about the promise of their friendship as a lie than worry he'd actually take something from her. Would she let him?

The indecision is plain on her face as she looks from the groaning Longclaw on the ground to the smirking horse, the original target of her disease, leading the way for her to follow him.

Who does she trust? Does she run back to Tephra? For some reason that idea - to run - seems ludicrous to her. Why would she run? Instead she takes a step toward them both, pinning her ears flat against her head. "What do you mean he could have hurt me? What magician?" she demands. She's not going anywhere until she gets some answers.