Wallace
She heard him lift from the ground to escape and that knife in her breast dug deeper. It was irrational, illogical, to feel so hurt that he would just abandon her again when at that moment she was the one trying to storm out of there. It shouldn't matter if he walked off too, or flew away, but it did. Her jaw clenched tighter and stupid, fragile eyes dared to moisten. Why did she have to lash out, push him away and make him leave again? Why did she have to care at all?
But he didn't leave.
He dropped to the ground before her and she stopped short with eyes slightly widened in surprise, a billowing steam of his breath between them. It must have been his, because hers had suddenly gone missing again, buried deep in lungs that refused to drag more oxygen into her.
"There is nothing I would enjoy more than ripping that monster apart limb by limb for what he did to you." Almost a growl, a gravelly sound that made her blood course swifter and her head turn away in shame. Just as she did, he shielded her from something dark and new in his eyes, a subtle shift that she couldn't quite catch before his eyelids fell and his walls went up. She wished his words hadn't felt so good, hadn't felt so safe. He would have still said them had she been anyone else. She knew she was not special; not to him, not to anyone.
They had also stung, though, and her eyes remained away from him even though he couldn't see the self-blame screaming so loudly there. It was her fault. She had brought this on herself. Maybe it had not been done to her, but done because of her. It was all her fault. But her gaze was drawn back to him as he held so very still, steely again so he wouldn't see her as weak and fragile as she felt just then, wary of what more he might say.
He was quiet for a long while, struggling to batten down the hatches, lock the cage in his mind. And she was tempted to reach for him, tempted to lightly brush her muzzle to his and seek his hidden truths he clutched so close. Her own were laid so bare. But nobody ever touched her anymore, not since that day she was found so ruined. And maybe it wasn't fair to want his secrets, to stand on even ground when this was her own doing, so she withdrew with barely a breath across his heated nose, her eyes and heart hardening against the vulnerability.
Those swimming eyes of his opened to reveal a pain she couldn't understand, even as it stirred its match deep inside her chest. A suffering, a sorrow, a guilt. "I'm sorry," he said, and the full meaning behind it was clear. She hated how strongly those two simple words could affect her. She hated how she must have needed to hear them, from anyone or maybe just him, and how her anger slipped from her needing grasp, desperate to stay strong before him. How quickly she wilted. But she found being strong was a losing battle.
"Hello, Wallace."
She flinched violently, startled by his smooth voice from seemingly nowhere, and subconsciously stepped closer to Sabrael as though she could put him between her and Ashley. Bitterness flashed in her eyes and she side-stepped away when she realized what she'd done, her ears pulling back in frustration at being so jumpy when it was only Ashley, not something to fear.
Ashley had come so silently, and was so careful and cautious as though approaching a terrorized little creature. She was both annoyed and grudgingly pleased by it; annoyed because she didn't want them to see her as something so fragile and broken and damaged. But pleased that he would consider she might not want him there and come to her so uncertainly, put the power in her hands when she was so very powerless.
And she didn't want him there, she'd wanted them before when she needed them. When she needed a strength she could no longer find within herself.
But they'd left her. Alone.
All they'd cared about was dumping her on Ischian soil and being free of her again. They didn't really care.
And now nobody ever would.
What do you want, she forced out quietly, her breath stolen away as her glare avoided them both.
