05-24-2026, 02:09 PM
Ryatah
WHEN I WAS SHIPWRECKED I THOUGHT OF YOU
IN THE CRACKS OF LIGHT I DREAMED OF YOU
She isn’t sure if the sound of the other mare’s heartbeat growing louder is real or imagined; if maybe it only seems this way because she has focused nearly all of her attention on it.
Does she sense that anything is wrong yet? Ryatah didn’t see how she couldn’t, but perhaps the other girl did not have enough experience with what it means to be prey. She, on the other hand, has been prey all her life—the fact that she often walked herself directly into the lion’s den is a different matter, though.
“Me too,” she says when Zohariel says that she would help anyone, and the note of melancholy to her voice is dulled by the overall brightness that radiates from her, by the stardust that falls from her wings and bleeds from her old scars. She isn’t lying; she would do nearly anything for anyone, if asked. But there is only one that she would do anything for, only one that could overpower every thought and every belief she thought she had once had.
“So you’ll understand then, when I tell you that I need your heart.”
She has thought long and hard over how she was going to accomplish this, remembering how Gale had stabbed into her chest for her own heart. She knows, too, that Carnage likely would have preferred something like that—all violence and rage, but for all her gray morals, she does not possess that type of anger.
She uses her magic instead, fashioning the light and stardust together into something like a spear, piercing right into the mare’s chest. She tries not to look at the blood, at the way it seems almost black in the dark of night, glistening in the moonlight. Her own blood is rushing in her ears, muting the sounds around her—any sound that the mare might make, the sound of her sternum cracking and the heart being dislodged from behind her ribs. She does not notice the way the blood sprays, that come daylight it would be stained against her porcelain white skin, that for all her attempts at disconnecting herself from this act she would never be able to entirely absolve herself.
Her magic holds the heart aloft, a mix of blood and stardust pooling on the ground. She stares at the bleeding mass, adrenaline and guilt and excitement burning together in her veins, nearly forgetting the host she had torn it from. She can think only of the fact that she, for once, actually followed through with something that he had asked her to do, and she is trying so hard to ignore the realization that it wasn’t as hard as she had thought it would be.
But she is still a soft hearted fool, and before she leaves her magic pours into the mare's chest, stardust filling her veins and forming a strange, peculiar kind of heart. She does not know if it will work—does not wait to see. She is already leaving, the blinding light fading back into its usual sweet, golden glow, the eyes falling from her wings in a chorus of thuds to the ground as she disappears into the dark.
Does she sense that anything is wrong yet? Ryatah didn’t see how she couldn’t, but perhaps the other girl did not have enough experience with what it means to be prey. She, on the other hand, has been prey all her life—the fact that she often walked herself directly into the lion’s den is a different matter, though.
“Me too,” she says when Zohariel says that she would help anyone, and the note of melancholy to her voice is dulled by the overall brightness that radiates from her, by the stardust that falls from her wings and bleeds from her old scars. She isn’t lying; she would do nearly anything for anyone, if asked. But there is only one that she would do anything for, only one that could overpower every thought and every belief she thought she had once had.
“So you’ll understand then, when I tell you that I need your heart.”
She has thought long and hard over how she was going to accomplish this, remembering how Gale had stabbed into her chest for her own heart. She knows, too, that Carnage likely would have preferred something like that—all violence and rage, but for all her gray morals, she does not possess that type of anger.
She uses her magic instead, fashioning the light and stardust together into something like a spear, piercing right into the mare’s chest. She tries not to look at the blood, at the way it seems almost black in the dark of night, glistening in the moonlight. Her own blood is rushing in her ears, muting the sounds around her—any sound that the mare might make, the sound of her sternum cracking and the heart being dislodged from behind her ribs. She does not notice the way the blood sprays, that come daylight it would be stained against her porcelain white skin, that for all her attempts at disconnecting herself from this act she would never be able to entirely absolve herself.
Her magic holds the heart aloft, a mix of blood and stardust pooling on the ground. She stares at the bleeding mass, adrenaline and guilt and excitement burning together in her veins, nearly forgetting the host she had torn it from. She can think only of the fact that she, for once, actually followed through with something that he had asked her to do, and she is trying so hard to ignore the realization that it wasn’t as hard as she had thought it would be.
But she is still a soft hearted fool, and before she leaves her magic pours into the mare's chest, stardust filling her veins and forming a strange, peculiar kind of heart. She does not know if it will work—does not wait to see. She is already leaving, the blinding light fading back into its usual sweet, golden glow, the eyes falling from her wings in a chorus of thuds to the ground as she disappears into the dark.
AND IT WAS REAL ENOUGH TO GET ME THROUGH —
BUT I SWEAR YOU WERE THERE
@Zohariel