[private] Straia;

[Straia]

sometimes we want what we want --
    -- even if we know it’s going to kill us.

Just like that, it begins. Embers become a spark.

She steps back, leaving nothing but the scent of her and the warmth of her breath where she had been. Her amber eyes glitter, mischievous and malicious and wild. There is a fire in them, a power that burns, fed by barely contained magic. It brims at her edges, the power of Beqanna overflowing her veins. The heart of the world beats steadily beneath her, unchanging despite the plans that happen just above its surface. Again, she wonders why she, of all dead, had been given such power. Why choose chaos and destruction? Surely Beqanna could have chosen someone like Rhy instead, someone with kindness in her veins.

Yet Straia had left Rhy crumpled on the beach, tossed aside not far from the body of the nameless stallion who’s heart she’d stopped. There was blood on her hands, certainly. Some caused by her directly, most caused by her indirectly. Though did it matter if it was direct or indirect? At the end of the day, she was the catalyst. She was the thing they feared the most.

Was. Oh the brutality of past tense. Yet the possibility of present tense stands before her. Her role has shifted, changed as she is changed. The Chamber is gone and with it, some part of herself. Yet she was so much more now, so much more capable of inciting flame in more than one place. It was strange to be so free, but the possibilities spread out before her, glittering like gems.

“There is a cost,” she warns, for there is a cost to all things. There is a cost to the magic that flows in her veins now. There was a cost for the reputation she built and the world she once destroyed. She had paid it willingly, will pay what she owes Beqanna willingly as well. “You will take everything you want. We will build you an empire and we will tear down your enemies.” We, because she could help him. We, because she no longer needed to be the center but simply the match to start the fire.

“In return, be prepared to have everything taken from you. Will you pay such a price?” She had given her crown for the war she started, and in some way, her life. Her goal had never been the crown though, it had been to build the Chamber back to a truly ‘evil’ kingdom, as such distinctions existed then. Her goal had been to create fear at the name of the Chamber, not her own. She had succeeded, and the price felt like nothing to succeed.

The question though, was such a price worth it to Castile?

-- straia

the raven queen

@[Castile]