07-11-2020, 06:52 PM
lord, I fashion dark gods too;
It is as if time slows, in that moment.
He watches with curiosity what she will do, with the alien laid beneath her hoof, an easy target. He knows what she would have done once, but that was decades or centuries ago, and she’s changed – as has he – and this is a different situation entirely. He has shaped her, in his own way, but he has not entirely remade her.
The hoof trembles, for a moment, and then it is back on the ground. There is no dull thud of the alien’s skull cracking, only the sound of birdsong, of her breath; and the weight of her choice, heavy and hanging between them.
“I see,” he says, and his voice is dangerously soft. He waits a moment more, as if this would be the thing to change her mind, tip the scales, but she steps back further, offering an explanation that means nothing to him.
He steps forward, closing the distance she had made, skirting around the alien. He looses its hold on it and it scrambles to its feet, its bothersome shrieks twisting the air, and for a moment the dark god considers snapping its neck himself just for the damned silence, but a corpse – at least, one of his making – would ruin the atmosphere. So he lets it go, lets it disappear into the woods beyond.
“Almost,” he says, “I’ve never liked that word.”
It suggests failure. A puzzle unable to be finished. A mountain, unconquered.
He wants to kill her again. The desire is there, hot and heavy. But the memory of last time – of how she had stayed dead, how his magic had not been enough --
(almost)
keeps him from this. He will not risk it in such a way again, not yet. Besides, there are plenty of ways to punish, death is simply of the easier.
He touches her. It is tender, because although she has failed him, this wasn’t unexpected. They all fail him, in time. He is not done with her, not yet.
“Do you remember,” he says softly, almost sweetly, “what happened last time you defied me?”
His lips on her cheek. She’s so warm, so sweet.
“I remember how you tasted.”
Her blood in his mouth, her eyes spat in the dirt. He barely remembers the reason for it, but he remembers the blood on his tongue. The thrill of such savagery as the kingdom watched their queen fall.
A flutter of eyelashes. He remembers when they happened upon one another, how he had restored her eyes.
The lord giveth, and the lord taketh away.
His teeth sink, and, in his mercy, he sharpens them, makes excision more precise, less ragged than the bluntness from equine teeth. The first drops of blood hit his tongue, and he moves quickly – from desire and practicality both – and takes one eye, then the other. He looks at her then, the blood on her face, the sockets made empty again.
“There,” he says, “a punishment fit for a queen.”
c a r n a g e
@[Ryatah]