DESPOINA
For all of the negative emotions that swirl within Despoina, fear is not often one of them. She has stared at death from the very first day of her life when her mother lunged at her and then when the dragon stallion stared at her with such contempt. She has never been afraid of pain, of dying, because in her wicked heart, she has always known that there are things so much worse than a quiet, final end.
She has always known that what she carries within her is so much worse than any such fate.
So, no, she doesn’t feel fear when she looks at him—when she takes in the smoke tendrils that curl away from a face that disappears from sight, the sharp eyes that cut through her. It is something else entirely that simmers in her stomach. Something like a curiosity to learn more, a dangerous thing that she feels bite through the layers of her own sorrow. And perhaps fear of such a thing is indeed what she feels.
“I am not afraid,” she whispers, her voice so delicate and small. She angles her head to the side, her black eyes studying him and wondering at everything that he must be. Is he often stared at with derision? With admiration? Do the eyes that follow him burn with hunger or with fury? She can’t imagine that there are many eyes who seem him often. He feels more like something that dissipates with the morning sun.
For a second, she considers giving him her name but it is a small, terrible thing and she knows that it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t really matter and even giving that much of herself feels like a burden.
So she holds onto it close to her chest.
Instead she just settles her weight, feeling a strange stirring in her chest when she asks:
“Do you feel it?”
She angles her head around them.
“There is something heavy in the air tonight.”
I guess the sound of your voice in the aching will just have to do