our demons are all around us and they don't come from hell
every single one of them reminds us of ourselves

Time had become meaningless.

The last thing she remembered, truly remembered, was handing off the crown to Scorch. It had been her final act as Queen, and even then, it had been trying to get through that meeting with any semblance of control. Her injuries had been deep, catastrophic, and standing before her sisters, she had struggled to remain upright. She had not been fit to rule, not in that state, not when she had been so uncertain of her own survival. Her self-healing powers had sent probes throughout her own body, calculating the damage, and what she had been found had been devastating. Survival had not seemed possible.

As soon as the deed had been done, when the newly crowned Queen stepped forward to lead the people, Brunhild had stepped back and dissolved into shadow. At first, she raced into the belly of the jungle, and then, when her control of the shadows faltered, she limped. She had expected that her kingdom-given gifts would be stripped immediately, but it was more of a leak. She worked on healing herself, but it did not come easily or without effort. It was slow. In time, she barely felt supernatural ability to heal at all. And so that gift went first.

Her control over the shadows slipped away slower. It hurt less to become the darkness and so she resided like that for several months, her atoms and cells spreading out slowly on the forest floor as she tried to knit herself back together. Months passed and she became less and less able to shift into the shadows. At first, she could still sink into the darkness, but only for a short while. Soon, she could not do it at all. And so, that gift left her, as well.

Brunhild was then left to her own devices to heal, and, well, it took time. The shame of her weakness burned deep, and she did not emerge from the depths of the jungle. She remained cocooned, cut off from the kingdom’s politics and tides. She did not hear of the wars or the battles or the shifting of the crowns. She did not hear anything except the beat of her heart as it regained its strength, her pulse going from lethargic to active, her eyesight clearing, her breaths coming in deep gulps instead of shallow gasps.

Her health returned just in time for the world to dissolve once more. Perhaps that is why it takes her so long to make her way down the Mountain. Perhaps that is why she holes up at its base. She has no magic for it to return to her, no benefit to bestow upon her, but she finds comfort in its alienness. She finds that there is stability in it. She had no memory of the place, but neither did anyone around her.

Of course, even that cannot last forever. Eventually, the valkyrie warrior peels away from it, her heavy head swinging toward the sound of voices, her dark eyes heavy-lidded and neutral. She had never been a great beauty, but there was a calm to her, a power and depth. She would not let trials take that away.

When she comes to the forest, she breathes deep, and she sees him. His red seared into her memory in a way she could not name, could not ever understand. The memory of him had been something that she had held close during those months, those years, apart; at some moments, she felt it was all that she had.

So she does not wait to make her way toward him. She simply navigates whatever horses linger in the silver light of the moon and walks straight toward him, her expression washed clean except the occasional spark in her dark eyes. “Rodrik,” she breathes in her husky voice and then falls silent, feeling an ocean of emotion storming inside of her and being completely unequipped with how to handle it.

our demons are all around us and they don't come from hell
every single one of them reminds us of ourselves

His voice strikes unknown chords within her barren chest, and she shifts, almost imperceptibly, when he says her name. It is like coming out from beneath the water and drawing your first breath. In some ways, it hurt, the ice of the air stinging your lungs in alien ways, but in other ways—oh, in other ways—it was life being poured into you. Hearing his voice, so soft and certain, was life thrilling through her once more.

At his admission, she laughed, shaking her head. “I thought I was gone too.” And she had, for so long. She had felt herself melt outward and inward, her body lost to the shadows and spiraling over the trunks of the jungle trees and mulch, unable to rein it back with her powers so weak, dripping from her slowly.

Without thinking, she took another step forward, the distance between them closing, their bodies close enough that she could feel the warmth of air expelling from him, seeping into the spaces between them. It filled her with a quiet ache as she studied him, remembering all of his familiar planes and angles.

“How have you been?” she questioned, although it was not what she wanted to ask. She wanted to ask if he had thought of her, remembered her; she wanted to ask if he had found love in all of those years, although such emotional topics were not natural to her and it was certainly not her place to ask. She was clumsy with these emotions, uncertain, and the discomfort settled into her bones, fought with the natural desire to just reach out slightly and touch him, finally, to know what his flesh felt like next to her own.

Instead, she fell silent, drawing inward, her expression remaining cool and collected. Her eyes were the only things that gave her away, electric with all of things that remained unsaid between them.

our demons are all around us and they don't come from hell
every single one of them reminds us of ourselves

Brunhild was never made for intimate moments. She was not born in the heat of passion or in the quiet of love; she was not made from two hearts coming together. No, she had been born from rage, from anger, from bloodlust. She had been made in a moment of King and Queen, both half-mad with fury, the clashing of swords. She had been conceived in the darkness and then raised by warriors. She had never been shown that a touch could be anything but the bruising hold of a bloodied fist upon the hilt.

So she does not know what to do at first when he closes the distance, when their flesh meets in the way she had thought upon all of those years in the moments of quiet. She shudders involuntarily, heat rising in her chest. There is a strangled noise in her throat that rises and then smooths, turning into something that rumbles in her chest as she closes her eyes. This—this was everything she had never thought she’d have.

She leans into his touch, the velvet of her muzzle lifting to touch him, to explore. She had never been locked in an embrace of any kind, let alone one like this, one with such deep roots, a plant that had been untouched for so long and allowed to reach maturity. It was the first time they had touched and yet there was nothing new about what grew between them; she had recognized it from the start.

“I know,” she says softly, her husky voice kept close just for the two of them. She should never have left; she should have sought him out, trusted him to help her find strength and healing. She should have relied upon him, should have known that he would be there when no one else was. “I should have stayed,” she says, her mouth at his throat, the salt of him on her tongue, intoxicating and all-enveloping.

He is the only thing she can see, can sense, and she is drunk with the closeness. Her movements become bolder, her touch more possessive as she explores him, claims him. Brunhild was a maiden but not a meek one; she may not wear the crown, but she was still every inch a warrior Queen of the Amazons, just as he was still the devilish King of the Chamber. “Rodrik,” she finally murmurs, breaking away just enough to look him in the eye, breath catching in her throat. “I have never been in love,” her eyes blaze, her words as blunt as always, the dark bay mare knowing nothing but how to be truthful, “but I think that this is it.”

our demons are all around us and they don't come from hell
every single one of them reminds us of ourselves

She cannot decide whether this is the beginning or an end of sorts, if this is to be a clinching closure on what had blossomed on them. After all, Brunhild has never known sweetness to last. She had been born and raised to believe in the everlasting strength of the shadows and for a long while, perhaps too long, had counted herself amongst them. She knew in their enduring power, in their ability to return again and again; she knew that even if they basked in the warmth now, it would never stay this sweet for long.

Still, she did not dwell on it, could not stand to think on it for long. Instead, she turned herself over to the raging tides of emotion swelling in her breast, her clumsy hands unable to hold onto it for long. She leaned into him, her mouth roving over the hard muscle she had seen for so long but never touched, the angles of him foreign and yet intimately familiar to her. She knew him, had always known him.

This was alien but not strange.

“I will stay,” she promises, although she is unsure of its staying power even as it spills from her mouth. Without the jungle, she had no roots; she was lost. She was a tumbleweed in this new Beqanna. For so long, her entire being, her entire purpose, had been swallowed up by her presence in the Amazons. Without that to guide her, she had no idea of what she would do or where she would go. What point was there in serving a kingdom or helping shape a land if the sisterhood would never be what it once was?

Again, she turned from her own thoughts, deftly shutting them away and instead sinking into his next words, closing her plain brown eyes as if she could remember this moment forever. She was not a particularly sentimental mare, but this was writ on her heart and would be forevermore.

Brunhild could not help but laugh though, the sound soft and muffled. “This would have all been so much easier had I admitted it earlier.” She reached up to lip at his mane, to pull at the red silky strands. “But I cannot find it in myself to regret how it happened, only to be grateful it happened at all.” She leans into him, breathes him in. “Where is home now?” Because wherever he lived now, she would follow.