CASIMIRA
dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah
She wants to hate him.
There had been a time when she thought that she did. When it had become clear that he was the reason her mother was gone, when no one could summon an explanation for why he found the need to kill her. It had been there even once her mother returned, when Casimira first saw the scar that marked her chest from where Gale had reached through and ripped out her heart—an eternal reminder of what had been done. She is sure her mother finds some kind of twisted romance in the idea that her and Atrox now share matching scars across their chests, but that is something Casimira fails to see the bright side in.
She had hated the fact that anyone had done that to her to begin with, she had hated that someone had forced her to endure the turbulence of grieving her mother and watching anyone that loved her do the same, and she had been so certain that if she had ever found Gale that she would not hesitate to end him.
She had hated Gale, until he was a living thing standing before her.
Where once she had thought she wanted nothing more than to seek revenge against him, the slow-burning fury that had been living in her chest loses its ferocity at the sight of him. Her eyes, once narrowed into draconic slits, return to their equine shape—still a striking ice blue, but rounder and giving the appearance of softening. She has no way of knowing that he is telling the truth, but she has always been one to follow her instincts, and something in his mannerisms tells her he is not lying.
How many times had she done something in her dragon form and not remembered?
How many times had she awoken with blood in her mouth and no recollection of how it had gotten there, with the taste of fire still on her tongue and the fear of not knowing why she had used it?
She inwardly wrestles with these ideas in her head—with the notion that to hate him, or not believe him, would go against everything she had ever begged anyone to accept of her.
And the idea that perhaps she is just as bad as he is, that she is the villain in someone else’s story.
This realization causes her anger to deflate almost entirely, and she is left with an emptiness so great she is afraid she will sink inside of it. She looks at him, at the lightning that flickers around his legs, at the confusion in his electric blue eyes, and the emotion that tries to take up the empty space—sorrow and empathy, along with her own shame—are so overwhelming she wants to run, but something keeps her rooted where she stands. Knowing that perhaps this might be her only chance to gain any kind of insight on the man that had wreaked havoc on so many lives.
“It has been a long time since the Eclipse,” she answers him quietly, her scales now retreating and being replaced by a soft, white coat. “Years, actually.” She studies him silently for a few moments, her mind teeming with questions that she doesn’t quite know how to ask, so instead she prods gently, “Is that the last thing you remember? The Eclipse?”
@
Gale