etro --
in the hushing dusk, under a swollen silver moon,
I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom
Months had passed since she had been here. Months she does not remember—an entire section of time ripped away from her, leaving her shaken and unsure. She is not even certain that she would have known that months had passed if so much had not changed since she had last returned. It had been as simple as closing her eyes and falling asleep, drifting away into slumber and rising in the morning. But it had not been that simple. Her dreamless dream had not been harmless or brief. She still did not understand.
Of course, it is no surprise that she finds herself here again. That she walks this land in hopes that she would find him—that he would smolder beneath her touch, raging fires turning to ash. She knows that it is a fruitless search but one that she does regardless. It fills the void in her heart, eases the gnawing pain that stings and burns and sizzles. It is a physical act that she turns toward blindly, hoping for a reprieve.
Memories live here, as bright as the constellations, as close as the mulch beneath her feet. She could feel them pressing in on her, against her throat and behind her eyelids. She could see him there with his flat shark eyes and crusted lips, the stench of murder tangled in his coat. He had been a monster. He had leveled cities and burned dynasties and there was nothing humane about him, but she had loved him. Loved him when she first met him and he smelled of life taken. Loved him when they stood there with silence and wind twining between them, when she gave him her heart and he looked toward the rustle of a nearby bush instead. She had accepted that. Took the scar upon her heart, but accepted it. Let him go.
(Not a day went by that she did think of him.)
At first she does not see Pollack so much as feel him, dread settling into her heart and then easing, as if it was coming through water. She glanced up, muddy brown eyes searching for Kingslay. She swallowed painfully when she did not find him, almost looking down before she saw the figure stalking the edges.
Her stomach churned, heart screaming out for him. He was Kingslay, she thought wildly. He was not, she reasoned—knowing he was not. But the danger of him, the jagged edge of him, it called to her as nothing had since he had left. The reason in her belly cried out, but she ignored it, instead picking up her head and walking toward him. If he was the knife, she was the lamb, and she would lean into the blade.
“Hello,” she said softly as she approached, her voice the only pretty thing about her. She had inherited none of the beauty of her parents: not the thin, regal beauty of her mother or the powerful strength of her father. Instead, she fell somewhere in between: tall but not broad, capable but not graceful. But, he. He was truly something to behold. Monstrous—golden as the sun but as dark as the night. Dangerous.
Her heart fluttered when she looked him in the eye and saw the smoke and ash of Kingslay instead.
“My name is Etro,” she whispered.
She knew he would tell her his name and she would repeat it, but she would not believe it.
Kingslay, her heart sang. Kingslay.
-- vanquish and yael's trait-negating desert princess --
