what a sight for sore eyes; ryatah

[Ryatah]

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

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

you could have it all, my empire of dirt