08-09-2016, 05:33 PM
i don't love you;
but i always will.
Their eyes meet and she holds his gaze - not many can match her look but he always has; most quail beneath the fire in her eyes (not tempered steel like her once-Queen’s eyes held, Riva was always hot and smoldering), careful to look anywhere other than her ugly face, made more so by the hate that thinned her out and left her all bones and hardness. For a moment, she realizes that he always saw beyond that, even when surrounded by all his lovely plump little mares and there was Riva, striking in her severity, but for all the wrong reasons and he still looked at her like he saw more of herself than she ever did. He was a mirror that she refused to face head on, afraid to see what would be reflected back at her in his unwavering eyes and it is she who looks away first even as he challenges her with his ‘like what’ comment.
She thinks of striking back at him with something witty but the way their noses meet and linger as they share each other’s scent has her reneging on the thought of saying something altogether mean to him. Her eyes close for a moment - the same moment that he indulges in, where their thoughts spin away; his to here and there and then the nothingness in which her thoughts have already slid into, hard and fast, so that the nothingness of thought and time is tumultuous and causes her to tremble just the slightest. He might see it, that fine tremor that runs through her, and he might chalk it up to some angry tick of hers' or he might recognize it as fear - of the unknown, of what is growing between them just in that moment and the next. The storm that is building is chaotic, begs for release and gets it the moment he chokes her name out into the air between them --
“Who says I ran?” she spits, having come back to herself momentarily to gather enough venom to coat her tongue as she lifts her eyes to his - they are growing brighter and more fevered by the minute, her hate coming back to her on wings flaming like a phoenix’s. It is almost like he can see it in her - the royal blood that whored itself out to a pirate, thinking to make something of herself other than the family’s name and made only a small filly that had nothing special about her like all the rest did, no horn or pretty pair of wings, or ability to foretell the future or never die. Just some ill-made spawn that they muttered about and took in and completely forgot about all in the same breath. No one should be left behind, but they did just that to Riva - that illustrious bloodline abandoned her and she never forgot it, and will never forgive them for the injustices done to a poor starving foal who only wanted someone to love her.
How can she tell him that? That her vile bloodline began in the Dale and she will never set foot in that accursed land unless her sisters in the Jungle ask her to? But he asks her why she hates it so and her hate bursts inside her like a supernova and Riva thinks of lashing out at him with tooth and hoof, to pare a strip of his flesh from like Beqanna’s magic has done for making her remember. Then he shrugs and smiles like it doesn’t matter, like he never asked that question at all and she is struck dumbfounded by the sudden change in him. “My family left me,” is all she tells him, hoarding her hate and her secrets to herself but she gives him this much - this small token of why it is she hates the Dale with every fiber of her being, even as she takes a small unknowing step towards him, like a lost girl and almost - almost - brings her nose back towards his before swinging it away and looking in the direction he has turned towards, the Jungle, her haven.
“I will,” she amends softly, still at his side and almost conceding the lead to him as she inclines her head towards the path they will need to take. Then she brings her head up sharply and swings around to stand in front of him, blocking his way to the path behind her. “You never told me why you are sad,” and she cannot help the accusatory tone of her voice, but her eyes betray her - they say, please trust me, as the fires in them settle down to embers, almost warm and inviting because some part of her admits that it cannot stand to see the way he looks so downtrodden.
Riva