She has lost track of the number of years that have passed since that day in the Dale. Too many things have happened since then; she’s died and been back at least twice, but she isn’t sure why. She had no task that needed to be completed, no unfinished business, honestly just no discernable reason for death to not keep her. The curse of her immortality seemed to be that she was destined to awaken every day, without fail, until the earth finally disintegrated to ash and dust.

Perhaps the boredom that sat like lead in her bones is why she has been subconsciously intent on destroying anything good life had ever offered her. Anything to break up the monotony she had been trapped in for over a hundred years.

She is surprised, though, when an almost forgotten scent hits her. He is perhaps the only one that can elicit that strange jump-start in her heart, the kind when something startles you and for a moment your blood rushes and your skin flushes cold. She has spent her life living with monsters, obeying their every whim – until, of course, she doesn’t – but he would always be the top tier.  She recovers from her surprise, with a tip of her shapely head, as though she is adjusting her gaze to take him in, even though they both know, better than anyone, that it is a useless endeavor.
.
”Carnage,” his name is said with a strange little smile, and she is tranquil and accepting beneath his touch, as she adds with a lilt of amusement to her voice, ”You must be terribly bored, to be here amongst us mortals.” Her own pale muzzle touches his neck, just briefly; he is the only one where she is cautious of her boundaries, even though having him so close again is an odd sort of thrill.

His touch lingers over the hollowed and scarred sockets, the blemishes of his own creation, and again she replies lightly, ”Don’t you grow tired of being asked for things?” He knows that she is not that foolish. His gifts always came at a price.

RYATAH

She has always been foolish. Death and age hasn’t changed that, hasn’t changed the very way in which she was programmed to behave when faced with power and control, with fear and dread – to get closer, not further. She doesn’t think she’s ever ran from something ever in her life, not even when his teeth had ripped her eyes from her face, not even in all their meetings since. She’s never walked away from him, and not because it would be futile – he would always find whoever he was looking for – but because there was always that anticipation, that wonder, that insatiable curiosity. He fascinated her; when so many feared him, hated him, or worshipped him, she somehow harbored all of the above in small amounts, but it was an appreciation that stood above all else. She had a peculiar admiration for what he was capable of (even when she was the target), and there was something so utterly enthralling in knowing that he could break her in half in the blink of an eye.

”It would almost seem that way, wouldn’t it?” her words but a murmur, almost as sweet as she may have spoken to one of her lovers, as if she didn’t realize the danger lurking beneath the still waters of this very meeting. She liked to think she knew him fairly well; or at least, she knows him well enough to not trust him. He didn’t seek anyone out for idle conversation and companionship, and she is not naive enough to think he has done so now.

She was the cure for his boredom today, and she can only wonder if he’s going to drain all of her blood or only half of it.

The threads of his magic reach out like silken fingers across her face, billowing around the hollowed sockets with its invisible touch. Even muted and blurry, the vibrancy of vision startles her – she has been in the dark for so long that even a dim light caught her off guard, and her breath hitches in her throat. He speaks of her unborn child – no, children he had said – and he almost, almost gets her to waver. She was terrible at many things – a terrible lover, a terrible friend, a terrible Queen – but her children had always been her pride and joy, every single one of them, and over half of them she has never even seen their faces.

Hearing  Ashhal’s name makes her flinch, and for a moment her jaw tightens, tipping her face aside to hold his gaze in her blurry line of sight, ”I don’t think it hardly matters, does it?” And even as she says it, the precarious vision  begins to vanish, and even though her heart flutters anxiously, she finishes her line of thought, ”Your gifts are never given freely.”

But he had given her a taste, fleeting but intoxicating, and playing directly into his hands she steps forward, the heat of their bodies radiating between them when she asks of him, ”So what will it be?”

RYATAH

”No, you certainly have never pretended anything,” She agrees with him, with that same peculiar smile, as though their conversation is not so heavy and foreboding, further feeding the illusion that they are but two ancient entities sharing each others company. They have only had a handful of encounters in which she has walked away unscathed, and he is too focused, too calculating right now, for her to think that this was going to be one of those times. Somehow the fear that rushes her veins is not one that makes her flee – not even a flicker of a thought of it in her mind. It’s hardly fear, but more of an exhilarating adrenaline rush, an eager anticipation.  ”But I have nothing to offer you.” Nothing that would be of interest to him, at least, though she supposes that’s usually his goal – take whatever means the most to his target, whatever can inflict the most damage.

Make yourself humble before me, the words reverberate inside of her, echoing off the walls and stirring something alive; not something of fire and strength, but something that quiets her, that causes her to withdraw. She is again the docile lamb laying patiently at the jaws of the wolf, awaiting direction, and suddenly she is compliant, the notes of her voice somehow more reticent than before. ”I have always done as you asked, Carnage.” Almost always, but she doesn’t have to say that – not to him.

She touches him again, her lips hardly ghosting across his skin, and she remembers when he had been made of bone and rot. ”Will you give me eyes again?” So obedient in her request, the words uttered with such caution, to be asking the man for something that he had so brutally taken from her - but rightfully, she would never deny that, had never slandered his name for the way he had reprimanded her that day. ”Please.”

RYATAH

Her history doesn’t allow her to show fear. Fear has never brought her mercy, and her pleas have never stirred anyone to show her compassion. She has learned to cope in other ways, to turn her fear into something else, something that she can manage. She would have to be completely oblivious and ignorant to not be afraid of him – of course she is afraid of him. But she feeds off of her own feelings of helplessness and apprehension, by letting it twist into something that is too similar to want and desire, a cinder that ever so slowly begins to glow in the pit of her, and is threatening to ignite.

To want, and to simultaneously be afraid, is a wretched and disconcerting thing.

He is being too kind, and she is still unsure of his motive, but she only lets herself wonder on it briefly. She would find out, when he was ready to show her. She would be patient, even if her pulse is rushing, and her thoughts are clouded. She has seen him do many things. She has seen him overtake kingdoms, she has seen him strike down any he saw fit, and she has seen – for a split second, just a flash of silver and ivory – him as he lunged at her, to let his teeth find purchase around her eyes. But she has never seen him be kind.

She plays into his trap, perhaps willingly, perhaps unknowingly, but she is in his hands all the same.

His lips are on her face again, pressing against the hollowed sockets. Losing her eyes had been excruciating, but the shock had settled in after the first one, which had made the ordeal almost bearable. This was different. The feel of her body trying to grow two new organs is enough to make her suddenly recoil away from him, but the magic has already taken root. They have nowhere to go, pressing against the skin and hair that has lain in their wake for the last hundred and something years, and her breathing becomes ragged as she almost fights against it. The scarred skin splits and breaks, a strangled gasp in her throat that emits as a cry as the newly broken flesh bleeds down her cheeks, and only then is there some semblance of relief.

She blinks.

Her vision is blurred at first, blood and tears collected on her black lashes, the watery winter light somehow seeming too bright. Another slow blink, and his face comes into focus – the last thing she had ever seen, and now, the first. Somewhere behind him there are trees, and grass, and sky (all things that she has missed) and she sees them, but she doesn’t look at them. She watches him with brand new, impossibly dark eyes, and this is where her confusion begins to settle. ”Thank you,” the words are breathed on an exhale, and she watches him with something between wonder and trepidation as they level with his claret-colored own.”I never expected to see you again.” A hesitation, then, before she finally dares to ask, ”But why?”

RYATAH