I was looking for a breath of life
another taste of divine rush
Straia already had Erebor when Shaytan joined the Chamber, and ever since then she’s been obsessively infatuated with the tobiano Queen. Luckily for Shay, Straia indulges her to a point, and never paraded her blossoming relationship with Weed in the spotted mare’s face. But there will probably come a time when Straia will have another child, and Shaytan will have to face the fact that Straia loves someone else more. But until then, she can live in a little fantasy where the two of them are secret lesbian loves and every other favor she bestows on others is purely due to Chamber politics.
Shaytan is Straia’s favorite until proven otherwise.
Nevermind that Gryffen. He is useful. But Shaytan is whom Straia secretly adores.
Did she not plead for human-Shay to save her, whilst Sayaa peeled her lovely, beautiful coat from her own muscles? She didn’t ask for Gryffen or Weed or Kushiel. No, she called out to Shay. But Shay couldn’t save her, even after beating herself bloody on the windowpane - and that vision has stayed with her. It is what drives her to the shadows, skirting all light until the sun goes away. It is some sort of stress that sends her tongue salivating over everything that takes a step into her domain. Bigger creatures - horses, turkeys, deer - she obviously can’t kill. Squirrels are difficult, too, they’re already super skittery. But Shay knows how to kill the bunnies. Oh yes, Shay loves to kill those bunnies.
She even saw a moose once. It took her back to her first days after the nightmare, and the crazy mare she met. Ha! How anyone could kill a moose is beyond her. The lying, stupid, girl.
Bunny! She freezes, muscles locking into place as the furry little critter comes into view. And then, with the most discipline that Shaytan has ever demonstrated, she slowly, deliberately moves towards it. Sometime she wins and sometimes she loses - but this happens to be a winning day, and this wascally wabbit will join its brethren in a discarded pile half a mile off - a gift for the foxes or coyotes, or maybe just the vultures. He catches her after she’s drained the blood and disposed of the carcass, reeking of sweat and man and something else (the thing that drives him like that).
He is all stallion; thus, Shay’s initial reaction is to recoil. But he persists, drawing her attention to her blood-stained mouth and hot, metallic breath. She laughs, dismissing his question with a single word. “Rabbit,” and while she isn’t always the type to give her name, she does. Because she can, and because why not? “Shaytan. Who are you? Why run… like that?”
What she means is - why run as if you want to kill yourself?
Shaytan
so many lives
so many pairs of eyes
[sorry this took so long!