03-05-2022, 09:36 PM
Amet
Amet thought he had seen every version of Ciri there was to see. Broken, fierce, relentless, loving, protective, doting, enraged, fearful. He was wrong. This Ciri is a new one. The anger in her argent eyes is different, because it’s not just anger. It’s vindication and amusement and the firm belief that no matter the power of her wrath, it is justified. This is the first Ciri that Amet has truly feared, the cold tendrils of it seeping between his leather scales as she continues closer.
With her wings poised away from her body, it’s easy to see the scars begin to glow. The ethereal light grows swiftly as it emanates from her smokey black frame just as the red stars quicken in their revolutions around the pair; instinctively, Amet pulls his wings closer to his sides. The fleeting thought of his nihilism passes. It remains unused.
I found him, you know. Her voice is dangerously soft, contemplative. Amet can’t help the way his lips break into a small smile. “He told me,” the golden stallion responds in kind, though there’s a softness to the edges of his words that is not there in Ciri’s. Takhar, despite his initial hesitations, had been excited at the appearance of his mother. Amet remembers the conversation well. Ciri’s inquiry, in that same tone, feels like a slap across the face. His small smile gives way, a disappointed frown left behind. “I always wanted him to have his mother. Jah grew protective of him - I can only imagine she did what she felt was right. She didn’t want him to be hurt, or for his younger siblings to see him hurt.” Jah-Lilah had loved Takhar just like her own - their own. Masuda, Bayek. In the years the young panther-shifter had not had the maternal support of Ciri, Takhar had been lucky for the presence of the mystic woman. “I had always wanted for him to grow up with you.”
But it doesn’t matter now. Their son is grown and no matter what words spill from his mouth, Amet knows that Ciri’s anger will not fade that easily. She needs to feel it, and to make him feel it.
All around them, the evidence of her magic has continued to grow and grow. The scars that sluice her skin glow so brightly now, but it’s the universe that surrounds them that leaves Amet breathless with fear. Stars, galaxies, things he was never supposed to see from the safety of the hard earth encircle them. She is in her element - powerful, unforgiving, volatile. It’s the most beautiful he has ever seen her. She lunges at him suddenly, all hooves and teeth, and Amet takes the collision with a loud grunt. His lips curl back, away from blunted teeth, but he cannot bring himself to retaliate.
A lifetime away and the first time they touch in all of those years, it’s borne of violence.
Do you know what it’s like to die, Amet?
Her question imprints in his brain, something he will never forget. Not the tone, nor the inflection, or the look in her silver eyes. The way she sings it will reverberate in his mind forever, and in that instant he mourns what they used to be. He mourns the Amet and Ciri who’d hid themselves in their wisteria hovel just for the pleasure of each other’s company. How far they had come, how far they had fallen.
I do, she whispers as she lunges again and this time Amet pivots to the side, his wing thrown open in an attempt to keep her back. He hadn’t expected her to bridge the gap between them when she holds all of the power in the universe around him now. Even if he’d wanted to, Amet knows that his nihilism could not save him in the face of This Ciri’s fury.
“Do it, Ciri. If you think it will take away your pain, do it.”
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
@Ciri
