what a sight for sore eyes; ryatah

[Ryatah]

“What have I become, my sweetest friend?
Everyone I know goes away in the end."

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

you could have it all, my empire of dirt