cRess
She is just beginning to give in to sleep when the sound of an unfamiliar voice hits her ears, and her eyes snap open, falling upon the gray stallion across the clearing. Gathering what is left of her strength, she clambers to her hooves, eyes narrowing as she takes him in. She has never met the man, but she knows his name before he utters it – Vulgaris – and an anger flows through her so swiftly she feels as though she may faint. This is the man – the viper – who had ruined her friend so easily, and stolen Cress back to Loess when she had finally found freedom.
She could make a list of all of his grievances, but she simply doesn’t have the energy.
When she opens her mouth to speak, there is fire there, burning brightly at the back of her throat. Many years ago, she would have swallowed the flames and forced them back down, but today she does nothing of the sort. Let him feel fear as she threatens to soak him in the very thing that had once ruined her. Let him burn, make him sweat... she has not felt this sort of anger in so very long, and she relaxes into it as though it is an old lover.
“Back away from my son,” she snaps, lowering her head to shoo her boy away from the snake-stallion. Her throat burns from the flames and her voice has gone from deep to raspy as she speaks through the fire, but the threat is very real. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t melt your scales and turn you to a pile of ash like you deserve.”
I was finally free, she thinks, anger and despair waging a war inside her tired body. Free to be someone else, somewhere else, until he had set his designs on snatching her back. Forgive her if the only thing she can feel for this man is hatred – she can only see things from her perspective, and doesn’t know that the man before her is as much of a ruin as she is.
Maybe once, she would have cared that Leliana had so unceremoniously left him behind.
@[vulgaris]
infected.