A sick thought can devour the body's flesh more than fever or consumption.
She isn’t waiting long.
They come to her, flies to honey, from across the ice and out of the shadow. The first is perfect, and her heart almost flutters to know she is as lucky as she is. She eyes him hungrily, mapping the contours of his muscle and thinking quietly that he is likely more brawn than brain which is exactly as she likes them — with strings long enough to pull. He asks her why she’s here, but he ought to see the thirst that writhes like disease just below the surface of her skin.
“To take back what’s ours, of course.” She answers, and the words are honey on her lips. They confess a secret that is perhaps too bold for strangers to be sharing, but there is something clouding the fractures of his irises that she thinks she can recognize. She is busy learning it when the second comes, and the way that he spits the word clean like it’s venom, like it sizzles as it hits the ground, acid, sounds like music in her ears.
Phasus doesn’t bother masking the delighted smile that creeps along the edges of her lips then.
These are her people.
But the third leaves something to be desired. He is large, and gaudy, glinting gold and barging forward with accusations that have hardly been invited and leave a sour taste in her mouth. She doesn’t need his feigned generosity, and beyond that, he is in no position to give it. He presumes to know her agendas, and the truth is that he is wrong — at least at first.
The truth is that she hasn’t intended to take anything until this moment, when the audacity of his assumptions ignites something forgotten in her bones.
Of course this will never be her preference.
She is too well-kept, too spoiled and self-indulgent to ever want a frozen wasteland for longer than it suits her immediate needs. This is only a beginning. This is only the start of something much bigger, something she hopes will grow and consume like wildfires do. As she draws her wings close against her sides in a fruitless effort to trap the heat in against her waiflike body (an attempt that goes mostly in vain as an icy chill slides down the length of her back) she wonders what that will mean.
She doesn’t speak though, not yet. She bites her tongue to keep her secrets buried underneath her skin. She isn’t ready to reveal her cards just yet, though parts of her wonder if the large stallion before her would comprehend them regardless. And as that thought concludes the fourth comes — an obvious gamble, but she admires at least the tact he is capable of presenting. She laughs even at his joke, and it might be the only warmth for miles.
“Gentlemen,” she purrs into a sea of faces then with a smile that rivals the moonlight; so bright and so sweet that it aches.
“It was only ever my intention to seek refuge from the sick,” and this is true, she hadn’t come for anything beyond the salvation of her own hide, though she is not beyond taking what falls onto her plate without hesitation or second thought. She lifts her head to meet Leilan’s gaze squarely and the ends of her mouth curl upwards, reprisal evident in every centimeter of her clever smile. “But after such a warm welcome, I’m honestly feeling a little hungry for something more…” Here she pauses, tasting different words, spelling them out across her tongue until she finds one she likes the shape of.
Finally, she settles on one: “Tangible.”
“Or perhaps, you are?” Briefly she spins to the second, the one who spat clean like it meant something. She is powerful enough, certainly, but in the quiet cunning ways you don’t expect or see coming. Quite simply, Phasus has always preferred to pull the strings of kings and dictators with the gentle swing of her hips rather than brute force, her best work generally done behind the flanks of a different face.
She doesn’t linger on the thought long, however.
There is still so much labor ahead — if she must go solo, so be it.
“In any case, tell me, King,” the derision that permeates her honey-sweet voice is palpable, but she is still careful when choosing her words; severe ones, the ones that taste the sweetest on her tongue, like infest, or infect, or ruin, she sets aside for the time being. It is too soon for them — even if they’re building up stone-by-stone like walls at the back of her throat, even if it hurts to swallow them down.
“Will you allow the sick refuge, too? Like the rest of the safelands? If so, you are as big a fool as I believe you to be.”
There is a note here that will ring true for all of them regardless of where they stand, be it behind her or in her way. It is too soon to know if the contagion will spread in the safelands if the sick are allowed entry. The fairies have promised immunity in these places, certainly, but the fairies have also stolen from them before. What is needed now is a refuge from all of the sick in the event that things in Beqanna backfire, as they have always had a healthy habit of doing.
What is needed now is salvation.
What is needed now is a kingdom that was pure.
“Let’s all take a moment and think about our families, our children. Are you willing to risk them becoming infected by allowing the sick passage when they already have it in other lands? We need a guaranteed safety. Can you deliver it, King? Because I can.”
phasus
okay, well she's officially running for it now - unless bruise or @[Oxytocin] or someone else wants to banish the sick.