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Futuristic 〄 Help me find my way––!! | (syntranator & starboobie)

Kill me. Do it. Do it now! There could be no hesitation-- hesitation was a mother to ideas, you see, and Iskra did not want to find out what sort of madness could crawl out of Seraphina’s twisted mind. Just kill me and be done with it, she thought, as if her will alone could make it happen. Don’t you wish to satisfy your thirst for blood? (But, the thing was, she didn’t. Not really. The queen didn’t specifically desire to make her bleed, did she? This whole spectacle was not just a power trip, but also a punishment, and the pirate… well, the pirate had just told her that it didn’t bother her at all. That the queen’s sword was dull, and Iskra’s skin was steel. That she couldn’t hurt her, no matter how hard she tried! Wouldn’t it make sense, then, for her to look for other avenues? That, instead of giving up, Seraphina would keep searching for the cracks in her armor? …internally, the pirate shivered.) “I always knew you were a coward,” she said, for no other reason than to rile her up. “Full of empty words, and nothing else. You talk and talk and talk, but when it comes to actually doing something? Boredom. Crickets. Honestly,” Iskra gave her her best cocky smile, “my stay so far has been very disappointing. I’ve accepted already that I will lose myself in this dump, but can’t the process itself be more engaging? Because all that you’ve shown me so far is pathetic. You are a child, Seraphina-- a child who has been given a lot of fancy toys, but doesn’t understand how they work. With that lack of understanding, you wield them as well. That is why you cannot reach me! Not in any way that matters.”

Perhaps issuing challenges like that wasn’t the wisest approach, however, because Seraphina proceeded to prove that she could sink even lower. (No, the pirate thought, you must not, you must not, you must not! Except that she could, and somewhere in her sick brain, she was probably convinced that she had to. Wounded pride was a harsh master, after all! …was this her fault? Would Mercy truly have been allowed to live, had she just been an obedient little puppet? Had she given Seraphina a proper performance? Not likely. The snake just spews venom because that is all she can do-- all she says is twisted, designed to make me feel as if I have lost. There was no scenario where I would walk away victorious. No, indeed there wasn’t, but maybe, maybe Mercy could have been spared! The girl had survived for years under Seraphina’s thumb, and yet it was meeting her that somehow spelled her death sentence. What were the odds? Doom follows in my footsteps, Iskra reminded herself. The odds were, in fact, very good. Does it not follow every single pattern in the tapestry of my life?)

The pirate gulped, her eyes darting from the child to the monster and right back. What was she to do? How to untie the Gordic knot without cutting it? There were no good choices, not a single one, and despite that, she had to act! Walking away was a luxury that the pirate did not have-- a coward’s choice, and also one that would only deepen the girl’s suffering. (There were few certainties in her life now, but out of those still remaining, the fact that Seraphina wouldn’t give Mercy a clean death was perhaps the most obvious one. No, the girl was related to Verity, and there was no forgiveness for that sin! …did she want to give Seraphina an excuse to indulge in cruelty? To shatter the poor girl’s soul before her physical shell was destroyed as well?) “I am so sorry,” Iskra whispered. “For everything. I wish I was able to get to know you, too. Are you aware of who I am?” Slowly, deliberately, the pirate walked across the sands, and picked up her blade. (It felt heavy in her hand, in a way it never had before. The weight threatened to snap her arm in half, but somehow, the limb endured.) “My name is Iskra. Your sister’s wife. I see her in you, so trust me, little one-- whatever I’m about to do, it will hurt me way more than it will hurt you.” Although… why should she do that? Because Seraphina had said so? Because, deep in her heart, the pirate had accepted that there was no escape? Ah, what a pathetic conclusion to reach after slaying queens, and felling divinities! (An illusion, that was what it was. A carefully crafted narrative, only shown to her from two cherrypicked angles. There were never just two choices, weren’t they? The binary was seductive, with its simple, yes and no answers, but it was never all there was. Never, never, never! …did she still have the courage to reach for the stars, though?)

Despite the storm in her thoughts, no doubts showed on the pirate’s face. She approached the child, gripping her sword tighter-- her knuckles went white with the effort, though she didn’t seem to notice that. “Know that I am only doing this to spare you more pain,” Iskra added. “Had there been another way, I would have taken it. Sadly, with the circumstances being what they are, this is the most honorable thing that I can do. Don’t hate me for it.” The blade gleamed in the afternoon sun, and she raised it above her head. (The crowd went wild, too, clearly starved for blood. “Off her!” someone shouted. “Death to the traitor’s sister!” “Feed her her own entrails!” The voices were a sea, and just as easily, one could get lost in them. You know what the pirate did instead, though? Lightning quick, she sank her blade into Seraphina’s flesh.)

“It is a good thing,” she snarled, pushing the sword ever so deeper, “that I am a pirate. Honor means nothing to me, remember? Bitch.”
 
Power is like grains of sand. The tighter you close your fist around it, the faster it slips through your fingers. Seraphina has been clinging much too fiercely to those grains and now the Divinities have come to punish her for her folly. (The queen does not regard herself as a particularly pious woman, but there have been certain patterns in her Life that have led her to believe the Divinities are mistresses everyone must serve. Cruel mistresses, at that, for only beings so cold could have let her fall into the jaws of a beast so young. Well, it's too bad for them that Seraphina had not been a wiling pawn in their entertainment. Stubbornly she had clawed her way out of the beast's stomach and feasted on its meat, drank its blood. The Divinities, however, have not taken to her early defiance and since she has been faced with little punishments––becoming a joke princess, betrayal by a confidant, and now this. Humiliation in front of her subjects. No more. No more! She will silence them!)

At first, the queen wears an arrogant smile of her own––watching the little girl tremble like the pathetic whelp she is, watching her prisoner accept what she must do. It is sweet knowing how this story will play out.

...Or it was but now the narrative has been stolen from her!

How quickly, then, her smile is wiped from her face. How quickly, then, her vision begins to spot with red––the cheers from the crowd barely register and even the bastard in front of her only reads as someone she must tear asunder. (Somewhere, she had seen the shift in Iskra's swing. A moment too late, but enough to avoid the blade pushing through her neck and instead it goes through through her shoulder.) It's odd, because while this is a most unwelcome turn and the fire in the queen's blood will be expelled onto her queendom, there is a sense of pleasure in Iskra's defiance. Can such dualities exist? Well, no point in dissecting that thought. That can be left to those pansy philosophers.

As Iskra pushes the blade in further, Seraphina lets out a groan (if only it sounded pained). 'C'mon––more!' Her hand, soaked in her own sticky blood, grabs onto the pirate's wrist and pulls her closer, forcing the blade deeper into her shoulder. "You have damned every soul on this forsaken planet," she hesitates on the pirate's name and decides she doesn't like it, so she refuses to speak it. (Iskra must die, she decides.) "You truly are my twin flame. Just hurt me a little more, my love, and you shall be exactly like the rest." (What is she even talking about?)

In the end, Iskra gets out easy. Sure, she loses both of her hands and her throat is ripped out––a gesture the queen believes had been more intimate than what the pirate deserves––but she does not have to endure as Mercy does. She does not perish as the rebel territories do. (Mercy, poor Mercy, had been given to the audience. They crawled from the stands into the pit and terrorized that poor girl for days. Afterwards, her body had been placed on a stake and the army carried her corpse across the country like a flag as they marched towards the rebels. Then, for ten days, the rebels were not allowed peace. If the storms of glass and fire were not enough, then surely the plagues of flesh eating nanos gave them Grief. Not to mention the civilians and medics lost in Seraphina's targeted raids. And all for what? To grasp at sand tighter? Has she not learned? What does that matter when her tactics worked and the rebels have been forced back into the Wilds?)

Unfortunately, the prisoner is never left alone following her humiliation of the queen. Seraphina does not see her––to her, her presence is a gift and to be harmed by her hand a privilege. So, for the first Time, Iskra learns that the queen is not the only cruel woman in the palace. These new women do not give her the reprieve of Death. That is the queen's privilege. Instead they take her just to the edge before treating her and allowing the Shade to do its work. The wicked prisoner is also not allowed Sleep and when she reaches delirium, she is shown clips of her wife in various states of distress. After what seems like a myriad, Seraphina finally allows her prisoner release. She even makes it a celebration where loyal citizens are allowed to cast their stones and express their ire––it is Iskra's fault, after all, that their kin in the lower territories were slaughtered. In the end, her corpse is tossed into pit with other corpses and she is buried. The queen decides she is much too irritated with her love to give the bastard a second chance.

Well, that is her position at first. Then another myriad passes and she grows bored and, though she won't admit it, lonely. How she misses those conversations with her sweet love, her twin flame. How that woman set her ablaze in ways no other has. How she inspired such a sweet Victory. In that, she feels she owes the prisoner a thanks, for she could not have done it without her push. 'Yes, perhaps I was a bit harsh.' She doesn't worry about apology or forgiveness, as those are entirely foreign concepts to Seraphina, but butterflies do fill her stomach knowing she will be seeing her again.

When the prisoner's body is dredged up from the mass grave, the queen has her cleaned, her head shaved, and when she is less of the dreadful zombie she typically is after Death, she is invited to dinner. (Dressed in her wife's old clothes. A black jumpsuit where the bottom portion is silk, covered in golden embroidery, and the top is made out of some black sheer material with a deep V-line, also covered in gold embroidery that leaves little room for the imagination.) The prisoner has not been given new hands, as those must be earned, so invisible hands must help feed her. There are also straps keeping her in her seat and preventing her from much movement. No one else is present at this dinner other than the queen––perhaps Seraphina does not want to risk another unfortunate outburst from her love. "How I have missed you, my love. It is regrettable that we had to spend so much Time apart, but they do say that distance makes the heart grow fonder," she reaches over to Iskra and strokes her cheek. "I am thinking, we ought to have a trip soon. Just the two of us. Where should you like to go?"
 
(I’m Iskra, she reminded herself, her voice only a whisper. I’m a pirate, and I serve on Inure. My wife’s name is Verity. What I did might not always have led to success, mildly speaking, but I’m a person. I don’t deserve this.)

Long ago, in a past so deeply buried that its corpse had begun to sprout, Iskra had served under a cruel queen. What was her name, again? Seraphina? No, that didn’t feel right-- the bitterness she could taste on her tongue when saying that was much more recent, and shrouded in a different kind of pain. You wouldn’t compare a broken bone to having your beating heart ripped out, would you? A poisoned kiss to having your skin being stripped away from you, almost affectionately, like a lover might help you slip out of your dress? It was kind of like that, for reasons she couldn’t fully comprehend. It was, and it wasn’t.

Anyway, the name itself wasn’t important. Few things were, come to think of it-- the cycle of death might have stolen a lot from her, but it had also given her the gift of clarity in exchange. What were details, after all, if not distractions? Colorful, glimmering lights, for children to gasp over? What mattered was the core message, the words behind the words, and still, still Iskra could hear them! They said that… that… What did they say?

(I’m Iskra. I’m a pirate, and I serve on Inure. My wife’s name is Verity. What I did might not always have led to success, but I’m a person. I don’t deserve this.)

Eh, it wasn’t important. It couldn’t be, for if it had been, the pirate would have remembered-- the Shade merely helped her clean her thoughts, and keep them free from clutter. Recording days and days of information must have been taxing, right? People stored so much inside of their heads that it was a miracle their brains didn’t spill out! (…sometimes they did, at her behest. With her sword, Iskra had cut her foes’ skulls open, so, so, so many times before! They’d never offered any of their thoughts, and as far as the pirate was concerned, that had been terribly rude of them. Oh well. Most likely, they just hadn’t had anything to offer? Someone somewhere had said to her that common folk’s thoughts revolved around satisfying the most basic of their instincts only, and that did sound rather boring. The very opposite of letting your mind soar. …soar. Was Iskra allowed to do that? Vaguely, she remembered that she had been, that stars had called her their sister, but… ah, that memory was gone now, too.)

(I’m Iskra. I’m… someone? My wife’s name is Verity. What I did might not always have led to success, but I’m a person. I don’t deserve this.)

One by one, like autumn leaves, they were falling away from her grasp. Iskra would have reached after them, but have you ever heard of a tree doing that? The giants just swayed in the wind, guided by that whimsical will, and lived and lived and lived, for as long as they could. (Was she still a Seed, or had the shell been broken already? They had planted her, deep into the rich, rich soil, yet she couldn’t tell whether the spark of life inside of her had awakened yet. …all she could see with her mind’s eye was ashes, so much of them that the horizon itself was grey. Once, they had burned more brightly than the galaxy itself ever had, though who cared for days long gone? For all the phantoms, singing their sad ballads in the background? Iskra knew not their language, and understood not their words. For the first time since her very conception, she was alone, her guiding star’s light extinguished. Did that really matter, though? Darkness was a haven for the weary, for the ones who needed to rest their head, and she was so, so tired! I’ll just… close my eyes for a while. Once I open them, the world will still be there.)

(I’m Iskra. I’m… someone? My wife’s name is... is… What I did might not always have led to success, but I’m a person. I don’t deserve this.)

Her wife. Had she ever had a wife? The concept was etched in her mind, as if someone had taken a dagger and carved, carved, carved it into her flesh, yet the presence of the scar told her nothing of her supposed love. What had she been like? Had her eyes been kind? (Oh, how Iskra yearned to wrap herself in that kindness now! The woman whose face was a question mark would shield her from the pain, shield her from herself, too, and for a few blessed, blessed moments, she could pretend that everything was alright. That the pieces of her shattered soul were still waiting for someone to pick them up, instead of them being swallowed by the dirt. Dreams hurt nobody, right? And, for as long as she still could dream, Iskra refused to give them up. …no, a dying woman wasn’t required to hand her morphine over. Finally, the edges of her pain dulled, and now she could await her ending with some semblance of peace. What kind of narrative would it be, hmm? Something funny? Since her very existence felt like a joke right now, that probably wasn’t too far off.)

(She was… who was she?)

When they brought her in front of Seraphina, the woman looked like a ghost-- an imprint of her former self, recorded on living flesh. (You know what else she resembled? A fledgling, freshly out of her nest, though that very well might have been caused by the bald head. Oh well.) My love? The words that her counterpart kept spewing failed to so much as touch her, but this particular phrase did spark something within her. With renewed interest in her dead eyes, (Iskra) looked up. “I… I’m sorry, I do not remember you. Are you my wife? And who am I? I presume that you might know, since we appear to be affiliated.”
 
As the Divinities shape women in their image, Seraphina sees how she has shaped her twin flame in hers. Truly, she believes, she has outdone herself. The path of course had been twisted, tumultuous, and often tasted bitter before it tasted sweet but now reaping the reward of her hard earned work? Knowing that it is her artistry that makes her flame possible? Ah, her heart flutters just seeing her. Look at her with those hollow eyes and sunken features! Desolation has never looked more Beautiful to the queen. Naturally she would not expect anything less since she worked so tirelessly to bring her love to Life, to her fullest potential. Of course, there is still more territory for her to conquer and this only the beginning, but the hard part, as far as Seraphina is concerned, is over. (She will miss it.) This is now the start of something new, something so full of magic it ought to put more stars in the sky, she imagines. Perhaps she has even rewritten a few. 'Doubtlessly.'

With an elbow on the table and her chin resting on the heel of her palm, she admires her love, her eyes eating up every bit of her––the bald head may have been overkill, she admits, but unfortunately her hair had just been too unsightly after being buried under dirt and other corpses. 'No matter. It will grow back.' She swirls some pasta around her fork, collecting as much of that bloody sauce as she can, before she takes a bite, her lips puckering as she holds the prisoner's gaze. She sets her fork down, licking her lips, and resting her hand on her chest, smoothing her fingers over her necklace that has two gilded phalanges hanging from a chain. The prisoner's question, while entirely offensive, still brings a smile to her lips. (It could have been a sweet smile on any other woman, but for a woman with knives for lips it is a warning.) "My love, you suffered a terrible accident and so I blame you not for forgetting our union, but I do hope we can jog that memory of yours. Even if it has always been a bit unreliable. It is just so good that you have me to help you!" she giggles and the sound of people dying can be heard in it, "I will have the sage sisters pull up our records and files so that you may refresh yourself on our heavenly romance."

The queen reaches over and strokes the prisoner's arm. Then she gets up from her seat and drapes herself over the woman's lap, one hand resting on the ghost's bicep and the other wrapped around her head, pulling the ghost into her bosom. She strokes her head, pressing her lips to the woman's skull. "We can leave that for tomorrow. Tonight we will... hm, get reacquainted since you have lost so much to that dreaded witch. Ugh, so much of this could have been avoided had," the queen sighs and worries her temple, "Never mind. This is perfectly fine, my love."

From behind her, she reaches for her wife's plate and gathers some of the pasta around her fork, "Open. It's been so long since we've been able to spend Time together. I just wish to take care of you, my flame. I swear, once the sage sisters are assured that your head is alright, you won't have to be bound up like this. They're just worried. I'm worried. You gave me quite a fright with your accident, but luckily you married a queen! And so you are in the best hands." She squeezes the nub where the prisoner's sword hand had once been. "It's going to be fine, Azrael, we will make it through this challenging Time. I am sure someday we will laugh at the edges of nations we have felled, remember how silly this all was."

"Azrael, what say you to stretching those legs of yours and taking a walk in the gardens?" she asks, seeming almost innocent. "I am not sure you've been able to get much fresh air recently. It might be good for you. I can feed you strawberries and tell you stories of our Life together."
 
"A terrible accident?" The words tasted of wormwood in her mouth, of wormwood and falsehood, but there was no other thread for her to hold onto, and so (Iskra) grabbed it. What else was there to do? Hang forever in the cold vacuum of the space? (In her hands, this woman clutched her entire world-- the green, lavish forests, the deep blue seas, the deserts, with the grains of sand so red that they reflected the nature of fire itself. Wasn't that better than the endless, grey piles of ashes? Than all the dirt staining her very soul?) "I... yes, I suppose. That might be true. It would explain why I remember so little." ...and also why she felt like so little, come to think of it. The mind and the body were connected, weren't they? If a villain had taken her spark away from her, the change would be written not only in her flesh, but in the very core of her essence as well. That was the way of things, after all. "Is that how I lost my hands?" Briefly, (Iskra) remembered having those, though that may have been a dream-- a figment of her imagination, meant to bridge the gap between herself and others. Who was to say she hadn't been born without them? Not all women were created the same, in the image of goddesses themselves!

"I apologize, too. I didn't mean to worry you so, my... my love." Quizzically, (Iskra) tilted her head aside. "Is it alright if I use that title for you? I assume that I do love you, even if my memory fails to bring true colors to that knowledge. It's... like a faded photograph, I suppose." (A faded photograph of something else, the woman might have added, though that was too cruel of a detail-- akin to shards of glass hidden in rose bushes, instead of the usual thorns. A drop of poison in her companion's wine. Was her pain not deep enough already, after all? Did she need to twist the knife by pointing out that, no, her feelings weren't there? Certainly, that wouldn't help anyone.)

Clumsily, she accepted the offering of pasta, and... huh. Were those meant to taste like nothing? The cook's choice struck her as odd, indeed, though (Iskra) decided not to comment upon it. "Azrael," she whispered, her brow furrowed. "An odd name. It doesn't feel like me, but I don't feel like myself, either, so perhaps this is a sign." Azrael, Azrael, Azrael. Hmm, yes! The more Azrael pondered over it, the truer it felt, almost as if the fact just needed some time to set in. (Did that not make sense? After looking into the sunlight directly, your eyes needed to re-focus to be able to see anything else, and it did not mean that those other colors were lies. No, you just... weren't capable of perceiving them. Ah, such a poor, blind fool she was, incapable of understanding the intricacies of the world! Luckily, she had her love to show her the way, even during those perilous times. How many women could say that about themselves? How many could dare to so much as hope for that? ...fate had been most kind to her, it seemed. Kinder than what she deserved.)

"A walk would be most pleasant, my guiding star," Azrael said, letting the words flow as they wished. So what if she didn't truly grasp them? Her wife, the light of her life, would! (...she had to. Without her understanding, you see, she was stranded, lost, worse off than truly dead. An empty shell of a woman that she'd once been, maybe.) "Will you tell me what happened?" For the first time since her awakening, a hint of urgency crept into her voice, and Azrael liked that development. It... made her feel a little less lifeless, if nothing else. Less like a relic preserved by ice, to be admired but never touched. "Not knowing anything is frustrating, I have to say. No, it is beyond frustrating. If there is someone responsible for this state of mine, I should like to drink wine from her skull. That is the least she deserves! Because of her, I... I don't know how to love you. How to be good to you." The woman's eyes were still dead, still devoid of spark, but when she looked at the queen? One might spot a ghost of something else in that gaze-- of something powerful enough to fell empires, and slay goddesses as well.

"Tell me how I might love you," Azrael whispered, ardently. "I wish to know how to please you. Pathetic as I am right now, I am still your wife, and you should not be burdened with an incomplete woman. I need to give myself to you entirely."
 
"Azrael," she whispers the name like a spell, knowing that each Time it is said Iskra will be forgotten to the histories. No one will ever know of the pirate. For all the galaxy will know, she disappeared. Now when they hear the tale of Azrael and Seraphina? They will know that their names are supposed to be spoken as holy mantras. Their names will become prayers and for those devout enough, they may bless them with their blades, for blood and fire are the only true enlightenment. This is their destiny, Seraphina is sure of it. She may have had to grasp and claw and carve it herself, but the Divinities have never made anything easy for the queen. Why should claiming her destiny be any different?

"Are you sure you want to know this tale so soon? You are only just recovering and I worry how the details may affect you," she coos in her most soothing voice. She gets up from her wife's lap, kissing the top of her head then her eyes. She waves her hand through the air and the gesture seems to signal the guards standing outside the dining hall as they come in soon after. She orders them to undo her wife's bonds and they dare not challenge the queen on that. When her flame is released, certain precautions are still taken––the queen may be convinced enough Azrael is buying her story, seeing as how soft her mind has become, but she is still no fool. (Never ever will she let her heart be betrayed by snakes.) So her wife's wrists are cuffed together in front of her, the cuffs fitting snugly around her and show no signs of slipping off even despite Azrael's lack of hands. "Dearest, you must understand the accident was terribly traumatic and," her voice starts to waver, her eyes mist with tears, "I really hate to see you like this, but... When that witch cast her spell over you––you tried to kill me. I blame you not, of course, for I am understanding and know that you were under a mere spell. Again, until the blessed sisters know your mind is where I believe your heart is, these measures must be taken. Though I assure you, you will have your freedom again. I mean not to clip your wings, after all. You were meant to soar, Azrael."

She links their arms together and, with the two guards in tow, they make their way through the palace to the gardens. It must be the long season, for despite the late hour, the sky is tinted pink and orange with only soft twinkling stars overhead. In the garden, the flowers are in full bloom and there are flower beds and trees and bushes and so many different sprawling pathways to explore. Overhead, there are even floating beds. The fireflies are starting to sparkle and it becomes quite hard to imagine that Aurora is at war. "I would be delighted if you were to call me your love, my love! It would help me feel like we truly are finding our way again," she strokes Azrael's arm, taking her in no direction in particular. (Though despite this being her own idea, she hardly seems interested in the place. In fact, she even curls her lip as they walk past the orchids and crushes a few for seemingly no apparent reason.) She sighs, reaching for one of the floating beds and pulling it lower. She steps onto the platform and then helps Azrael as well. "This place used to bring me such joy. It is where we used to meet. If our secret rendezvous were not in the royal archives, then we were often here. It's unfortunate you don't remember, but it was hard for us to be together at first with myself as a princess and you as a soldier––the council never would have approved such a pairing. Soldiers are to be concubines at most, but I could never see you that way. Not after how I saw you could set towns ablaze and call it mercy."

"You were so efficient with your blade that when they found out Azrael was coming, it was easier to surrender. How could I not fall for a woman with such a powerful name, hm? After all, it was so much like how my opponents would react when finding out they were to face Seraphina in the arena." While she leans back on her palms, she beckons Azrael to rest her head in her lap as she fabricates a romance from nothing. (As it would turn out, she may have learned a thing or two from hanging with that poet for so many years. For that and only that, she might be thankful.) "With names associated with Glory and Gore, it only made sense for us to match. Oh, we were such a whirlwind––just could not get enough of each other. It was undeniable we were twin flames and were put on this planet to watch it all burn."

"But Divinities are cruel," she snarls, nearly spitting out the word, "and so of course they had to tear us apart! That witch from the rebellion got to you––I daren't say her name for Fear it might bring the spell back," she closes her eyes as if pained and takes in a deep sigh. "But it is important that you know our enemy, so I will tell you for I do not believe in lies or secrets. Her name is Verity. She was a princess, too. We were friends, even, but apparently she could not accept her defeat in our final trial and has instigated a rebellion that is tearing my––no, our queendom in two."

"Like the snake she is, she feigned that she wanted to make peace but you, ever wary, felt this could be a trap and insisted you go in my stead. Reluctantly, I agreed. We both knew that, as the queen, I must always be protected. So you went and, well, I am not quite sure what happened, but you did not return when you were meant to. A full day passed and I grew worried, so I went to search for you myself. When I arrived at that devil's camp, it was empty. Except for you. You were strung up on pole, hands missing, your body a mess of blue and black––as if that was not bad enough, when your eyes fluttered open they were bright green and filled such nasty craze that you managed to break from your chains and, well, you attacked me. Or tried. I was able to knock you out and bring you home. The sage sisters had to spend weeks working that spell out of your mind, but, unfortunately, the spell had so infected you that... that your memories were lost." Her crocodile tears rush down her cheeks and splash over Azrael and for a moment she seems lost in a storm of emotion.

"When you say you will bring that woman to her knees and demand Justice, though? I know my Azrael is not lost, for only my Azrael would still have that bloodlust in her soul. She may have tried to tear us apart, but I know my little Azrael is still there," she feigns to manage a grin, wiping her tears from her wife's face. "I will show you how to love me properly, but one step at a Time, my flame. For now, just promise me that when you make her head into a proper chalice, that you bring me her heart. Together, we can feast on her meat and blood and know that conquering our enemies only makes us stronger. Nothing can tear us apart, for you are mine entirely."
 
Kill her? Her own wife? Azrael stared at Seraphina with undisguised horror now, all pain of the galaxy reflected in those blue depths. "My love, I... I cannot ever hope to attain your forgiveness. Not after what I did. The goddesses frown upon those who turn their weapon against a loved one, and I shall not blame them for it." Had her heart been pure, after all, wouldn't she have been able to resist the temptation? Shake the mind control off, like a bad dream? No shackles would have been able to bind her, that much was certain! (And yet, yet here she was-- a poor, wretched sinner, at the mercy of a woman whose trust she had shattered so utterly. A mere worm at her feet, deserving of nothing but being crushed under her heel! That isn't what she desires, though, Azrael realized. Had that been true, I would have died a thousand horrible deaths by now. Instead... instead Seraphina showered her with kindness, sweet enough to put honey to shame. Ah, how had she ever deserved it? How, how, how?

(...maybe there was something in there, in the past that Azrael didn't remember. Buried under the sands of time, there must have been a reason why a woman of Seraphina's caliber had fallen for her of all people, right? I just have to become worthy of her again, the former soldier said to herself. It cannot be too hard. Regardless of what that nasty witch did to me, I still remain myself. I have to, for I cannot be anyone else. Calling a star a pebble did not make it so, now did it? Similarly to that, nobody could shape Azrael in their image!)

"Verity," she whispered, her face scrunching up in disgust. "Indeed, the Divinities are cruel. To think that they blessed the snake with such a glorious name!" (A sweet-sounding name, too. A melody captured within itself. Many times had she whispered it, in awe, in utter rapture, and... wait, what? No, no, no! That couldn't have happened, unless... unless the princess had planted it into her head, along with more poison. What rotten, miserable fruit would that tree bear? Azrael swallowed, not wanting to think of that at all.) "Her ancestors must have had a queer sense of humor to be sure. Perhaps they meant it as a warning? Either way, worry not, my guiding star-- I will not let her reach my heart again. Whatever happened in that camp, it shall also stay there. Never, never will I allow her to seize victory! For my soul, just like the crown you wear, belongs to yourself." (Saying it felt... strange, really. Hollow, like the shell of an egg that had been eaten by a parasite before it had had a chance to hatch. Was this normal? Was that was love was? That doesn't matter. I have loved her once, and so I can fall in love again. Without her, who am I? A mere shadow, cast by a corpse. A thing that technically may have been alive, but also empty, so, so empty--)

"I promise you, my love," Azrael looked up at Seraphina, "that I shall claim my vengeance. Not just for you or myself, but for the sacred bond that she fractured so. Know that her greed will be her downfall-- never should she have set her sights on that which wasn't hers! The second she did, her death sentence was signed." Unhesitating, the soldier pressed her lips against the queen's forehead. (Beautiful, she thought. Beautiful, and mine.) "How should you like it, my love, if I carved her eyes out? I think that it would be... hmm, most fitting. A punishment that matches her crime. If she cannot see, after all, then envy won't settle in her heart! You see, I am starting to think that a quick death might be too merciful for the likes of her," Azrael pursed her lips. "Wouldn't you agree? There are so, so, so many ways in which we can show her just how badly she miscalculated, and killing her right away would close those paths to us forever."

For a heartbeat or two, the soldier was silent. Heavy were her thoughts and heavy her heart, as if something was dragging her in a different direction entirely, but... ah, no matter! Azrael wouldn't listen to those treacherous voices, for they must have belonged to that witch. "Seraphina. Seraphina, my love," she gave her her best approximation of a smile, "allow me to prove to you that I am still worthy. That I am your Azrael, despite the wounds I bear now. Do I understand it right that I set your heart on fire with my skill? With the justice I brought to our enemies? Very well, then! Tell me where the rebels are hiding, and I shall make them beg for swift deaths. With fire and steel, I will baptize them. All the impure thoughts that they are having? They will turn into ashes, along with their homes. For you, my love, I will burn this entire accursed planet to cinders. Will you grant me that privilege? I would be... ah, most honored to do that."
 
'Those blue eyes like sapphire,' the queen muses, playfully feathering the tips of her fingers over Azrael's eyes and imagining what they would look like as jewels on her fingers. 'She would look much prettier with eyes red like rubies, I think.' That thought puts a sweet smile on Seraphina's lips, though her eyes seem to warn her wife of danger for wicked thoughts are lingering behind the queen's soulless eyes. "Azrael, kindness is my virtue and how could I ever go back on our vows? You may not remember them, but I still hold them sacred," she sighs, sliding a hand over Azrael's chest, down the V-line of the clothes she's been dressed in. Electricity seems to collect around her fingertips, feeling how smooth and warm her wife's skin is and thinking of how she so utterly belongs to her and only her. "Of course, if you should like to prove your worthiness once more, I might like a sacrifice." Divinities need sacrifices, no? If she is to bring the others down, she may as well start devising the rituals of her temple. "Bring me the eyes and tongues of a hundred heretics and I will know the depths of your devotion, my love. I will know that you are worthy of my love and my altar," she kisses both Azrael's eyes, then presses her lips to her ear, licking the shell, "Would you do that for me, my love? Are you willing to show me how far you will go so that my heart knows where yours is?"

Her hand slips beneath Azrael's clothing, innocently or not so innocently smoothing her hand over her wife's flesh. In a way, it can be read that she just misses the intimacy they must have shared prior to the accident. In so many other ways, it's almost like she is a butcher trying to figure out where to make her next cut. Though her hand stops rather suddenly as her love's words reach her. Her heart stops, too. But her blood? Somehow it becomes fire in her veins and dries out her mouth as images of that traitor flood her mind––that traitor as a bleeding, cut-up, and unrecognizable heap. Limbless. Perhaps with her tongue nailed to the floor? Yes, yes, yes! (More, more, more!) "My sweet Azrael, you would make me the happiest queen, the happiest wife were you to deliver Justice and ensure she can never hurt us again. Let us drag her corpse through the streets so that everyone knows what happens to those who cross the most glorious Seraphina and Azrael. How sweet your mind is––I knew it was far too strong to succumb to such dastardly tactics." When her wife's lips touch her forehead, involuntarily her cheeks flush. The gesture is far more tender than she ever could have hoped for and it causes her heart to beat wildly in her chest. 'What is this?' And how can make sure it never gets torn away from her? How can she sink her claws into this kindness so that it is never stripped from her? "We will end her in the most holy way. She is a snake, no? Let's see if we can strip her of that skin," she grins, her eyes flitting to Azrael's lips. 'She is my wife... Mine.'

"Tomorrow, my love," she whispers, shifting their positions so that Azrael is lying under her, "We will outfit you with new hands, so that you can make proper artistry of those heretic rebels. The day after we will march on their camp and crush them." Wild sparks dance in the queen's eyes and the world burning is reflected in her empty gaze. She grabs onto the collar of Azrael's clothing, pulling her up, and swiping her tongue over her lower lip, "There will be no survivors. I have a feeling by the week's end I will know your devotion."

"Those filthy rats were driven into the Wilds shortly after we recovered you, but they have allies in some of the outer communities and what remains of the colonies. They're starting to encroach on our queendom once more. My spies indicate they are planning to strike soon. What might you suggest we do?" she asks, setting Azrael down in favor of running her hands over her figure. "Tell me, what kind of message we should send?"
 
My new hands, Azrael thought, are heavy.

They weren’t supposed to be, either-- her wife’s engineers had used the lightest of metals, comparable to wood in weight. They’d made them for her specifically, too, and connected them to her wrists via the nerves that had survived the onslaught. Why, then, did they not fit? Why, why, why?!

“General Azrael,” one of the soldiers whispered, falling on her knees before she even dared to speak. (Good, she noted. A soldier’s only language should be obedience. And, truly, was it not magnificent, the way fear settled in her heart before she’d even looked at her? How everything about her shrank, to make more room for her glory? ...Seraphina had been right. About all of it.) “Are you pleased? Do our efforts satisfy you?”

Azrael looked up from her papers, ever so slowly. (The woman with the dead eyes, they’d called her. The one who has swords in her glare. Of course, those rumors hadn’t escaped her attention-- it just made no sense to try and nip them in the bud, for they got her what she wanted. Fear, the soldier thought, was a powerful, powerful ingredient! The dominant spice in all relationships, except the one with her beloved, beloved wife. Where are you now, Seraphina? Are you looking? Please, look at me and know how much I love you.)

“Do I look satisfied?” she asked, her tone light and conversational. You know, as light as the blade of a stiletto could be? And just as deadly, if not more.

“I…” the woman wavered. “I know not, general. I don’t think I have ever seen you satisfied, but perhaps I am mistaken.”

“You are not,” Azrael offered her a rare, genuine smile. “Maybe you will one day, though! Most likely when you stop delivering such subpar results.”

“General Azrael?”

“I did tell you to burn the town to ashes, didn’t I?” Azrael’s voice didn’t shake, even thought something, something was tugging at her, like a spider might tug at its web after a fly had been captured. “And yet, yet those buildings still cast a shadow. Have you ever seen ashes cast shadows, my friend?” (The sky was red, red like all the blood that had been spilled, but it wasn’t enough! It never was, for those voices in her head kept screaming. ‘No! Don’t do it! You must not, I… I…’ I what, though? Why could she never hear anything beyond that letter, lonely and isolated? Eh, it mattered not-- Azrael had no use for false advisors, trying to wrestle her crown away from her fingers. I shall burn them, too, she thought. There is a reason why all things end in fire. Is it not a blessing of sorts, to cleanse them before breaking them down? To return them to the stardust, from which they were born?)

***

The ruins were still burning, like a corpse that still twitched occasionally even after its death. Azrael, with her women in tow, didn’t even spare the flames a look-- she didn’t have to, for they were familiar friends. “Seraphina, my love,” she pressed a chaste kiss on the back of the queen’s hand, “are you ready? For you, I have transformed this dreadful place into a canvas, and I should like for you to find joy in it.” (The streets were littered with bodies, most of them mauled beyond recognition. No, a rebel town deserved not the gift of acknowledgement. They had all committed the same sin, and for that, the same punishment would befall them! …in wronging Seraphina, they’d forfeited their own humanity. All of them had been warned, again and again and again, and yet, yet they refused to see the light! What was she to do with such women? Cut their eyelids off? Oh, please! No dignity could be found in such treatment, and Azrael would never sink that low.)

Where a town square had once stood, four young women were waiting. No, not women anymore, Azrael thought. They had transcended that state. In their wretchedness, they have become more than a sum of their parts-- a true masterpiece, for whole generations to admire. “Behold, my love,” she pointed towards them, like a proud owner might point towards her precious statue. “The leaders of the rebellion. They acted against you, unified in their thoughts, and believed that the hammer of justice wouldn’t strike them down! And so I was thinking,” Azrael smiled innocently, “why not give them what they desired so? A true unity, unhindered by the limitations of flesh. A sisterhood that they worshiped so fervently. Real closeness, inspired by all those lofty ideals. Have I not succeeded in that, my guiding star?” And, indeed! The women were sewn into one another, with ugly, festering stitches covering most of their skin-- most of their limbs had been hacked away, too, in order to give the resulting amalgamation more stability. Haha! See how thoughtful Azrael could be? (…their eyes had been gouged out as well. Blind they had been in their convictions, so why not make their bodies reflect that? Everyone, everyone should know who they were dealing with, at a single glance.)

“Do you like my gift?” the general asked, tilting her head aside. (Why oh why did this feel so wrong? Worse than a sword that hadn’t been made for her hand, even? The entire time, Azrael had been fighting the urge to vomit, though… no, that couldn’t possibly mean anything. Not after how much she had sacrificed, anyway. For her, I must be strong. If not myself, then who will be?) “I was thinking of killing them as well, but then I realized that it was you who they hurt the most, dearest Seraphina. Your expectations they betrayed, and your queendom they sullied. Therefore, you should get to decide what their fate will be! What should I do to them? Any special requests? Say the word, my sweet, and I shall transform that wish into reality.”
 
"Azrael, my love," the queen smiles, her soulless gaze dancing with the inferno her wife has created. 'An artist. A woman after my own heart.' "You have outdone yourself and for your efforts, you will be rewarded." She traces over the disgusting monstrosity that was once the rebel leaders and pokes into one's empty eye socket for her own pleasure. The thing squirms and rasps, but Seraphina does not hear it. Instead, she turns back to Azrael and strokes her cheek, "Flay them. Then have their snakeskins sent to whatever remains of this paltry rebellion. We will not stop until that witch comes out of hiding and when she does? We will make a spectacle of her demise." She kisses her wife's cheek and grips her sword arm, "Come see me after you are finished. My engineers and I have something to show you. It's going to take you to new heights of Glory, my love."

***
​
A few days ago the princess, the crew, and their allies had landed on Verity's home planet. (Apparently, the story of the pirate being stolen from her princess rippled through the galaxy and inspired both friends and fans to rally against Seraphina. Keilani, of course, sent a fleet of her finest warriors. Arendelle, the Huntress, similarly sent her best bows-women to aid them. Neareida gifted them healing elixirs and sent a few healers as well. Hryzn, most shockingly, sent barrels of peaches that promise sharpness in battle to all those who feast on the fruits. A few of Demetria's old wives even came to join.) Though, having had to land halfway across the planet so as to not be detected by Seraphina, this small army now sails towards her home country. (Some part of the princess wishes she could say that it feels good to be back home, but truthfully? This place and its magnificent skies, wondrous oceans, and greenest greenery feel like nothing to her. Her green eyes are set forward with one goal and this planet may as well just be another that she is to visit and then leave. There is no sense of reunion within the princess.)

She stands in Inure's briefing room, surrounded by the crew and the holographic projections of the leaders from the forces that have come to join them. At the center of the room there is a projection of her home country's landscape with markers indicating rebel bases, enemy camps, and Seraphina's last location. With an all out civil war, they don't have many options other than to fight their way to the palace, where Verity assumes her wife and sisters are being held. (Though they have eyes on a few offshore prison sites as well, Verity knows the queen too well to think she'd keep them too far from her grasp. She expects they'll be used as bait.)

"Provided weather remains in our favor, we shall arrive at Aurora's southern shores in two days Time. There, Halen will meet us and we will have a day to rest and prepare. The queen's set up her camps here," she points to a red 'X' on the map, "and here. There," she pauses for a second as a headache begins to split across her skull. She closes her eyes and shakes it off. "There we shall..." ('Verity. Verity. Verity!') "We shall prepare," wait, hasn't she already said that? "Apologies, just give me..." she mutters as the room starts to spin around her and the headache rages around her head, pressing against the back of her eyes until the familiar faces in the room blur into her ancestors. They are all crying out and screaming, but what they are saying is difficult to decipher since all their voices are shouting over each other. (Rarely do the ancestors ever interrupt their descendants in such a manner. Even when they had roared at the sight of Inure the first Time she ever boarded the ship, she had not been brought to her knees.) 'Iskra is lost,' they finally manage, their voices all layered together and echoing in her head. So much so, she nearly convinces herself that she cannot understand them. But the message is clear and they keep repeating it. 'Iskra is lost.'

***
​
Lost. As in dead? Lost. Has she run away? Lost. Broken like Blythe? Lost. Lost! Intellectually she understands the word and all its definitions, all the ways it can obfuscate, and yet she cannot bring herself to understand what the ancestors mean when they come together like that in warning. There are just too many meanings in their message and each possibility leads her further into darkness. (Not even a guiding star can make a difference here.) She's dwelled on it since the words were screamed and often goes to Sleep thinking of it. (Now her dreams are filled with Iskra––as if they were not already before. Except now, instead of happy reunions, she is only haunted by the worst. In some she'll find her in the garden, waiting by their tree, but when she runs up to embrace her wife Iskra becomes Seraphina. In others, she'll get to wrap her arms around Iskra only for her to come apart––arms and legs and head all toppling while the princess tries to catch all the pieces and hold her together. The worst are the ones where Iskra lays dying and asks, "Why don't you ever listen to me?")

As much as the message clings to her, the princess decides that no matter their meaning whatever Seraphina has done to her wife, for her crimes against her family, she will pay for in full. Of that, Verity is most certain. She's too far gone for salvation. (If only she had seen that from the very start. None of this would have had to happen and... No. This isn't her fault. She will not blame herself any longer.)

The princess, dressed her old armor, steps out of her tent with the weight of everything on her shoulders. Yet she carries it with grace, head held high as she marches towards the tent with Halen, Myrne, Saavika, Eran, and everyone else. The conversation dies when she steps inside, but this has become rather typical so she does not think anything of it. Not until Halen rushes towards her, grabs her shoulders, and tries to push her out of the tent. "Princess, Neareida's healers––"

"Princess," she snaps, "What are you hiding from me that you think I cannot handle? I am not a fragile bird, step aside." The other princess must decide it's not worth the fight and moves out of Verity's way, but not without wordlessly communicating, 'Don't say I didn't warn you.' When she steps aside, it's difficult to tell what the fuss had been about until Verity steps closer to where everyone is gathered and sees a pile of flayed meat, unrecognizable yet the princess knows exactly who these women are––the leaders who stayed behind when Halen and Verity had to flee. The leaders who had all come from Verity's hometown––who she had grown up around. (Ava, her old neighbor; Deidre, her sister's wife; Ko, a sage sister from her local temple; Willow, the governess's daughter.) The flesh, that looks like it has been sewn together, is scorched with a message that reads, "WE'RE COMING FOR YOU, SNAKE."
 
This is fine. This is right. I am not to spit on my beloved wife’s gift. When sculpting a statue, you had to do so with a hammer, didn’t you? There was no other way to shape its flesh, and somewhere in there, Azrael could see a delicious parallel with human souls-- those, too, could only be bent by fear, and nurtured by blood. By suffering. (Unless you’d killed, you had never really lived. Long ago, the general had come to believe in that truth, and with each passing year, the conviction only grew stronger! It was quite simple, once you stripped the facts of all the pointless decorative frills. Devastatingly so, actually. And, what was that naked truth? That women were swords, and all swords had to be tempered. That the softness of their skins only served to hide the sharp, hard, cruel bone beneath. That the animals caged inside of their souls, those raging wolves with teeth like knives, deserved to be let out! …and that carving the path to their freedom, with fire and blood, was a thing of beauty. The greatest joy in life.) I must not be hypocritical, Azrael reminded herself. How am I different than all those women I have brought to perfection? All that I shall sacrifice will be paid back to me, with interest.

“Are you ready, general Azrael?” Her arm was captured in a clockwork-like mechanism, its grip so tight that it almost restricted her blood flow. The machine was humming constantly, in a way you might call gentle, and Azrael… well, she didn’t think that she’d ever be ready, but that didn’t matter. Very few things did, in the grand scheme of everything. (A soldier wasn’t there to share her opinions, now was there? ‘Obey,’ they’d taught her, and she’d etched that word into her very bones. ‘You must, otherwise you are nothing.’ Of course, Seraphina had never said that to her outright-- her wife wouldn’t, for the love that bloomed in her heart obscured such things from her sight. Never, ever would she dream of using who she was against her! …the thing was, her not pointing such things out did not mean that they were untrue. Azrael couldn’t not be who she was, just like weed couldn’t will itself to be a rose.)

“This is the shape Seraphina wants me to assume, and so I will do exactly that,” Azrael said, everything about her harder than steel. “If my flesh is an obstacle to that, then I will shed it gladly.” Did snakes not get rid of their skin, once they outgrew it? Were milk teeth not discarded the moment something better, something sharper was growing underneath? All things had to change, change, change, relentlessly, if they wished to survive! If I am not enough, then I will change. In fact, that I was even granted an opportunity shows me how deep Seraphina’s love is. And, really, that made a lot of sense-- so much sense, indeed, that Azrael didn’t even need to try that hard to silence the tiny voices of doubt in the background of her mind. (Why? Why would she hurt you like that? You are not a toy, with parts to be conveniently replaced. You are a person. Cutting apart that which should remain whole is a sin! Something you’d do to an enemy, not the woman you love. Such thoughts, and many like it, had been bothering her since Seraphina’s grand announcement. The logic was sound, Azrael had to admit, but perhaps not relevant to her situation? Because sometimes you needed to be hurt in order to heal, such as when improperly joined bones had to be re-broken.)

“Do it. Do it now,” she ordered.

A loud crack echoed in the hallway, and Azrael’s screams reached the stars.

***

The fool was back. Azrael couldn’t believe the snake’s audacity, but perhaps it was true that the worst of criminals returned to the scene of crime-- driven by madness, they wished to admire the destruction they had sown. Does it please her, looking at Aurora and knowing that she is responsible? Had the ex-princess not poisoned the minds of the subjects irrevocably, you see, Seraphina wouldn’t have had to resort to such drastic measures! …what a wicked, wicked thing this Verity was. In another life, the general might have respected her for the nerve alone, but she could never forgive the way she had toyed with her. Never! (All those memories, turned to dust. Pieces of herself, torn apart and spat upon. Whose fault was it that she couldn’t return her wife’s love, huh? That she felt like a stranger by her side, lonely and lost and everything but happy?)

This is for the best, Azrael thought, nursing her new arm. At least I don’t have to chase her across the galaxy, the rat that she is. What kind of prey even comes without bait? Truly, she must be desperate for death’s gentle kiss.

“General Azrael,” one of the women whose name she didn’t remember finally spoke. “What shall you do about the situation? The reports say that the rebels are advancing, and setting women’s hearts on fire. This might turn out to be…” she looked for the right words for a while, possibly to avoid her subordinate’s wrath, “troublesome.”

“Oh, have no fear. I know exactly how to make the snake crawl out of her den!”

***

Once again, general Azrael walked the streets. Light her footsteps were, light like the faintest breeze, but given how quickly women fell to their knees? It wouldn’t be foolish to assume that they were stronger than an earthquake. “I have heard,” she began, “that you are sheltering the traitor in this city. You know who I mean, don’t you? The snake, whose name is so cursed that it might not even be uttered-- the one whose very presence is a poison to these lands, and who has murdered good women beyond counting.”

“Not true!” a small, dark-eyed woman shouted. “We… we wouldn’t, general. Our hearts remain faithful to the most illustrious queen Seraphina.”

“Hmmm… do they?” Slowly, Azrael approached her, each step small and measured. “I cannot even begin to say how much that pleases me. Indeed, loyalty will make everything much easier for you, my friends. Together, we shall send the traitor a message!” …and, time and time again, the general had learned that the most convincing of letters were written in blood. “We shall welcome her properly, too, for I do recognize her status as a former princess. And, what do you think, is there any better way to do that than with a hearty meal?” The only answer to that, of course, was the endless shaking of heads.

“Very well,” Azrael nodded, finally satisfied. Good citizens. They know the gift of fear, and they know it better than most. “Out of your midst, pick five hundred women. I will leave the choice up to you, for I am merciful to those who respect me. Each and every day, cook one hundred of them alive in front of the city gates. But slowly, my friend, so that our princess can feast her ears as well! This is supposed to be fun, after all. If she doesn’t come, feed the meat to the wolves. Oh, and if this doesn’t catch her attention? Make sure that she knows that some of her worthless sisters are still… hmm, searching for their purpose.” With that, the general smiled brightly. “They will appear on the menu on the final day!”
 
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Verity holds her breath, her back pressed against the slimy sewage pipe as if she is trying to fuse with it. Her eyes flit over to Halen, standing on the opposite side of the pipe, similarly trying to make herself small. Both princesses tilt their head so that they can hear the announcement from up above––from this general Azrael, whoever she is. (The rumors say she manifested from Seraphina's imagination. That she was built. That she lacks a soul. A general in her holy image, one frightened woman had reported. The idea that the queen is anything close to holy twisted the princess's stomach into knots, knowing her former friend has decided to assume divinity with no rightful claim. At the same Time, she cannot say she is surprised.) The voice reaches them in a low echo, barely audible. Halen slides her fingers across her holo-watch, apparently able to filter the voice and adjust their earpieces to make the general's words more clear. (Why does this voice sound familiar and distant at the same Time? It's like listening to a friend read a script from a play for a character who is entirely opposite to themself. In this case, she dare not place the friend, but her heart lurches.)

Carefully, Verity slides closer to the grate, getting dangerously close in fact, but she does not care. Curiosity has gotten the best of her and she wants to see who this general is; she wants to know who is blocking her path and preventing her from reaching her wife. She can feel Halen's worried gaze boring into her, but, like with everything else related to that princess, she ignores it. She can see the glint of a ruby colored arm, but the face of the villain remains unknown. She slinks back into the shadow with her brows knit together. Then, as if the general's vile declaration is not enough, she has to mention her sisters and had Halen not leapt across the sewage way and pressed Verity into the wall, she would have emerged and challenged the general then and there.

***
​
"Azrael," she mutters, glowering into her tea. (One has to wonder whether the tea is going to reboil under the princess's gaze.) Her attention snaps up to the monitor, waving her hand through the files. "What information do we have on this barbarian? Those mythic rumors aside, where does she come from? Is she from the arenas?"

"Admittedly, not much," Halen replies, pushing the other princess to the side and pulling up the records that Verity is looking for. "We only know what we've gathered from the towns and cities she has felled. She is apparently close with Seraphina, I've even heard the two are married, but where Seraphina found her is unknown." She pulls up gruesome images of the general's victims and the ash remains of once thriving communities. Silence passes between the two princesses, thick and sticky, and Verity pretends it isn't there. She sips on her tea, scanning the images for answers that won't come. Eventually, Halen breaks the silence and looks at Verity with her usual ice. "I know your mind is set both on this evening and your return to the Restoration, but, Ver..." the princess pauses, in a rare moment letting her facade break to show her earnestness, "Can you not see your effect on people? I made progress, that is certain, but as soon as you came, with a small army no less, more people have been defying Seraphina. Does that mean nothing to you? How can you risk throwing that away?"

"I owe this country nothing, Halen," she replies, sipping on her tea and allowing it to soothe her nerves. "I don't owe these people anything. All I have is my family and that is who I fight for now." Her eyes start to feel heavy, her body too, like all the exhaustion from coming back home and fighting is catching up to her at once. She takes a seat. "Per... Perhaps, had things been different," she says, her tongue feeling dreadfully heavy, "I could still be pa-rt of this." She sucks in a breath, fighting through whatever fog is wrapping her mind. 'I... I suppose I ought to rest...' "But after what you did..." she dozes for a moment, then forces her eyes open, concentrating on the three Halen's in front of her, "I can never forgive you."

"I know," the other princess concedes, seeming to have run out of defenses. "There is no forgiveness for what I did. I only..." she sighs, noticing the other princess is fast asleep. She pulls off her coat and covers the princess. "Never mind. Just know I am sorry and that is why I cannot let you take this risk. Let me do what I should have done back then."

***
​
The plan had been stupid and rash––a plan half-baked, but taken out of the oven in rush with the misplaced hope that it would still cook if just left out on the counter. The Time for discussion and debate, however, was out of the question. What with the princess's recent state, it had been silently decided to not change her mind for Fear it would only bring about an even more rash action. They needed more data before facing this new foe and gaining it by letting the princess slip on Azrael's blade seemed far too risky and far too foolish (perhaps that is why it attracted that foolish princess in the first place). Still, the opportunity to distract Azrael and her women and give the Restoration ample cover to continue their forces towards the capitol had been irresistible.

It had been Halen's idea to slip Verity a Sleep aid. It had also been her idea to assume that princess's role––an undeniable risk, but she feels somewhere that she owes it to Verity and her country to finally be brave and face the odds rather than run from them until better numbers arrived. Of course, she is not walking into this battlefield alone as Verity had intended. 'Like an idiot.' With her is an android in Verity's likeness, helpfully supplied by those noisy pirates, and some archers and warriors donning chameleon skin masks that also serve to disguise them as the princess. All they need to do is cause a big enough ruckus to allow the Restoration to move safely.

Halen steels herself under her cloak, waiting in the crowd of women who are all being forced to observe the 'feast.' She wears Verity's armor and even went so far as take Gwenwyn from her. While they are roughly the same size, it feels uncomfortable to be wearing her gear and she can feel the cybernetic links between herself and the armor at odds. She knows the armor will still listen to her, but it's something like wearing a sweater (or jumpsuit, she supposes) made of scratchy wool. Simply annoying.

She scans the crowd for the other 'Veritys,' her visor easily singling them out. Two archers are hidden inside the towers that surround the plaza. Two more stand at the plaza's entrance. The six or so warriors from that other planet she cannot be assed to remember are scattered throughout the crowd and the android stands closest to front. When the general makes her way to the front of the 'audience' Halen hits the record button, intent on collecting some data on this general to bring back to the others afterwards. However, when the general turns around and the princess spots her face?

"Shit." (There's no emotional response on her part. No heat in her blood or storms in her heart, but she does think of her... of the other princess and worries how she might digest this reality.) She zooms her focus in on that blasted pirate, just to be sure her eyes are not deceiving her and pulls up one of Iskra's photos to compare. "Shit." Well, this certainly changes things. She whispers in her comm-link to the other Veritys in the crowd, "Change of plans, we need to capture the general."

Not wasting anymore Time, the princess then removes her hood and presses a button at the side of her visor and a helmet materializes that obfuscates her face. She steps out of the crowd, along with the other Veritys. She draws Gwenwyn, but does not launch to attack. No, never risk the queen.

It's the android Verity that rises to challenge Iskra first. The robot draws a sword and declares, "If it is me you want, then have as many of me as you please, Azrael! But leave these women out of this."
 
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Heavy was the air, heavy with the smell of cooked meat and agonized wails alike, but still, still Azrael wasn’t satisfied. How could she, with their honored guest not even bothering to turn up? After all the preparations they had done, too! …so much resources, so much love poured into this, and yet the ungrateful little bitch turned up her nose at it. Disgusting. Even ignoring everything else, this Verity truly had to be the worst-- there was no insult greater than spitting on good women’s honest work, you see, and Azrael was fed up with the injustice. Fed up, you hear her!? “I don’t know,” the general frowned, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps add more spices? The winds have to carry the smell far and wide, so that our princess can get a glimpse of how appetizing our feast is. I mean, things being what they are, I cannot blame her for taking her sweet time! I imagine her schedule must be quite busy, with all those conspiracies and oath-breaking. These days, even being a treasonous harlot is a full-time job.” (No, that wasn’t an exaggeration. Not even remotely. The princess appeared to have her finger in every pie, and Azrael vowed to make sure that she would burn for it. Just, how dared she?! Rupturing the precious bond that had existed between her and Seraphina… no, she would never forgive her for that. Never, for as long as she breathed.)

“Because of that, we absolutely must outdo ourselves. Am I being understood?”

The women that were standing in front of her, rows upon rows upon rows, were shaking like leaves in the wind, but none of them dared to look away. “Y-yes, general. Your wish is our command.”

Was it, though? Was it? Azrael, too, had been a common soldier once-- long before Seraphina had become her guiding star, she had only had her sword, and an arm to swing it with. Just herself, with everything it entailed. And, really, how dear had the ambitions of her generals been to her heart then? How important? So divorced from her person they had been, indeed, that they might as well have lived in another galaxy entirely! “I’m thinking that perhaps some personal stakes will help you understand just how crucial this operation is,” the general beamed, savoring the overwhelming sense of dread that her words generated. Ah, wasn’t that what made life worth living? (Something had to, she assumed. Ever since the Shade had woken her up from her last death, everything had been grey, grey and tasteless, and it was hard for her to fathom why women clung to existence at all. Maybe their basest instincts were to blame? The desire to spread your genetic material was a powerful drug, designed to obliterate reason! …perhaps she simply ought to kill more. Azrael wouldn’t necessarily say that she liked it, but it was something, wasn’t it? Something other than the emptiness in her chest, like a hole shaped by an invisible bullet. Than the tears that filled her eyes at night, too, each time Seraphina left her bedroom. The screams of others could drown out a great many deal of things, you know? Starting with the voices in her own head, begging her to stop, to cease, to die before sullying herself like this. …heh, sullying herself. Preposterous, wasn’t it? A coal-colored heart like hers, blacker than anthracite, couldn’t possibly get any darker.)

“Don’t give me that look,” Azrael sighed, in the tone of a terribly disappointed mother. “I am only doing this for your own good, to unlock all the potential that is sleeping within you. And, truly, wouldn’t you agree that death is the best teacher? Death, and the fear that precedes it? Which is why I want you to know, my friends, that if you fail to attract the princess, you will join her sisters in the cauldron. Aren’t you looking forward to that? Not everyone gets to die for our glorious queen Seraphina, and in such a memorable manner, too. They will sing ballads about your great bravery!”

***

Come out, come out, wherever you are, Azrael thought. What, don’t you want to play with me? And I tried so hard for your sake, too. Unlike the snake, she didn’t bother trying to hide herself-- the general waited under the crimson skies, shrouded in smoke and sweat and screams of suffering. (The sword that was hanging at her hip? Oh, its blade was serrated, and yearning for blood. ‘Sculpt teeth on my new sword for me, my love,’ she had asked Seraphina a few days earlier, when they’d been lying in their bed. The queen was stroking her hair, and… well, it was easier for her to think of the painful things, for some reason. Pleasure disconcerted Azrael, for she knew it had never been meant for her. Why waste touches on a weapon such as herself? Foolish the queen was, foolish and a liar, liar, liar… ‘I owe the snake years of agony, so I’d better start delivering it soon. Soon, and with interest.’ Oh, how satisfying it was, the idea of it burrowing into the traitorous princess’ flesh! …would she beg? Was she the type to scream, loud and often, or did she save her sweet voice for the most skillful of techniques? I will have those screams, princess, Azrael promised to herself. One way or another, I shall force them out of you.)

And maybe, maybe that time was finally coming! Because the snake crawled out of her hiding hole, hissing with her forked tongue.

Eagerly, the general grabbed her sword, but… no, something was wrong here. (It was akin to biting into an apple, and discovering that it was but an oddly-shaped lemon. A paltry imitation, crafted to insult an expert’s eye. The victory swelling in her chest turned sour, sour like a long-lost love, and--)

“You are not the traitor,” Azrael snarled, utterly convinced despite knowing not where that conviction had come from. “You are nothing, and I shall not fight you. Guards!”

Arrows pierced the impostor’s chest, promptly sending the woman to the ground. (Were those… sparks? Indeed, there could be no mistake! Electric sparks, dancing across her body just like waves sometimes rippled through the otherwise glass-like surface of a lake.)

“Are you this afraid of your fate, Verity?” the general cried out, properly enraged. “Come out, or one of your sisters dies now. Which one will it be, I wonder?”
 
It all devolves to chaos then. This is fine, the princess supposes. Better than fine, even, if looked at through a certain angle. A distraction is what she means to cause and what better way than for a plan to go awry? It does make her uncomfortable to not know how this is going to play out with all the variables changed and mixed up, but she supposes there is excitement in that, too. Maybe that's why her own heart is racing right now? That does not matter. She cannot pay attention to that. She must focus on how to bring Iskra back. If she can do that for the princess, then maybe... Then maybe she'll start looking at her again. (Forgiveness, she knows, is out of the question.)

Women scream and run, frazzled by the turn of events. Arrows fly across the plaza, striking down the crimson guard, striking innocents; the small group of women she brought both clash with the guards and try to evacuate the area. 'We should have brought more.' She realizes, rather quickly, that their chances of returning home are dwindling. Dwindling and not zero. She holds onto this, shaking out the nerves buzzing in her stomach. She inhales and pulls off her helmet. No point in hiding if Iskra has already managed to identify the droid as a fake merely by looking at her. 'So she knows Verity, still. Somewhere, perhaps? Is Azrael a ruse? A virus planted in that cybernetic arm, poisoning her mind?' She'd like to know this and yet, she doesn't think she'll get that answer.

"Iskra!" she shouts, refusing to use the name of the character that pirate is playing. Then, without waiting for the pirate to turn or acknowledge her, she strikes. Perhaps it's been her recent sparring matches with Verity that have taught her to strike first when your opponent is not yet ready, because ordinarily the refined princess would wait for standard dueling conventions. (Then again, this is no standard duel.) Instead, she goes in with wild grace. The scorpion tail she typically dons springs out from behind her and siphons the acid from her skin to shoot at her opponent. Bombs and other dirty tricks are tossed, Halen no longer caring about preserving an image of honor. 'A few more minutes and they should be safe.' "This is not your way, pirate," she mutters, blood spilling from the corners of her mouth, though she cannot remember why. 'A few more minutes is all I ask, Divinities.'

***
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"Tell us about her."

"I wish that I could, mothers, but how can I contain her to words? I know it's trite to say, but I am not sure a language exists that can perfectly capture her. I shall try though, just give me a moment... When she smiles, which is not very often and rarely ever are they big, it's the birth of a galaxy. And when she looks at you, it's like you've been exposed––there's no hiding when she looks at you with her curious blue eyes. And when she speaks, every word is a spell or a potion that you must drink every drop of. She is the first breath you take in the morning and the sigh of relief in the evenings. Being with her is like knowing how your story is meant to end and knowing nothing else can hurt you now, because she is your end."

"She sounds wonderful, Ver. Hold onto this."

***
​
If their opponent were normal, they may have been given a three days grace to mourn the loss of the princess who really was the brains behind the Restoration. There is no Time to mourn. Their enemies know nothing of honor. There isn't even a proper body to bury. In some ways, the chaos Verity's Life has become is a familiar comfort and one she welcomes as a friend. In the chaos, she has no Time to think about Halen, what she did, or what she sacrificed. She has no Time to think of the sisters she risks losing everyday she is not able to wrap her fingers around Seraphina's throat. (Or Azrael's, for that matter.) There is no Time, even, to think of her wife. (Except for when she Sleeps and her ancestors come to her. Despite their last message, they are intent that Verity keep Iskra's memory alive. Perhaps for her own preservation? She does not know and the ancestors rarely gift her with transparent answers.) Day in and out, there is only the sounds of explosions, the squelch of flesh falling onto her sword, endless screams, and the moaning of the sick and injured. Yet despite their relatively smaller numbers, they make up for it in skill and strategy.

The princess's arms move automatically. The rhythm she's built almost seems like a dance, but it's nothing Beautiful. She doesn't even think much of her actions. Her heart may be beating wildly in her chest, but that is entirely because she knows what is waiting for her once they make it up to the floating palace. (No, it is not nerves. She knows this day is hers, somehow. The Divinities are shining down on her, she can feel that each Time her blade cuts into one of her foes. Yet even with this assurance, she has nothing to tell her she will be getting her wife back. Lost.)

In a rare moment of respite, the princess tilts her head backwards towards the stained skies and sighs with her eyes closed. When they open again, a spot forms in her vision. She tries to blink it away, but it only grows and grows until she realizes her visioning isn't spotting and something is flying towards her! Believing this is some trick of Seraphina's, she runs and shouts towards her women to fall back. She looks back to check on the object then starts to slow when the object becomes more familiar and her eyes widen, shock thundering through her as the dragon lands in front of the princess, with her head bowed, beckoning her to board. She can hear Myrne in the back of her mind telling her she shouldn't go this alone. Not until the rest of the women can make it up to the palace, but Verity has never been a good at following directions that oppose her heart.

Only telling her women that she will meet them at the top, she climbs on top of the dragon's back and clutches onto her scales as the creature flaps its mighty wings and launches into the air, sending a shockwave through the ground. She doesn't need to tell the dragon where to go, there seems to be an understanding of where they are headed. (Scared women hiding in their homes peer out of the cracks in their windows when they hear the dragon's screech, eyes widening with disbelief when they see their princess riding a dragon towards the palace. A violent whisper ripples across the capitol and maybe it's coincidence, but Restoration forces seem to have new allies.) Palace guards are easily knocked down; their arrows, swords, and spears are nothing to dragon scales; the turrets fall to the ground with a sweep of the dragon's tail; buildings are burned. Then, finally, the dragon knocks a hole into the throne room. The princess dismounts, thanks the dragon, and then steps into the palace for the first Time in what feels like years. (Memories try to rise to the surface, but she pushes them back down in a suffocating breath.)

The throne room, to her surprise, is not empty. (She hadn't thought Seraphina would be here, but apparently Luck may be with her.) However, it resembles a place of worship more than anything else and is filled with followers. As a result of the dragon's destruction and the princess's entrance, there are now crushed pews and, she guesses, parishioners. The princess doesn't have the Time to pay attention to everyone's reaction to her sudden arrival as her eyes glide to the front of the room, where Seraphina stands behind an altar; one of her sisters lays on top of it, tied up and gagged, ready for sacrifice. With no hesitancy, she draws her blade, Telos, and taps on the side of Halen's (now bloodied) snow white armor to produce a shield. "No more games, Seraphina! I am going to end you."
 
Iskra. The word sent a jolt of electricity down her spine, like a thunderstorm captured in two syllables-- a thunderstorm, or perhaps something infinitely more powerful than that. It knocked on the doors of her mind, oh so insistently, demanding to be let in. Iskra, Iskra, Iskra! What was it? Who? Azrael didn’t know, and that annoyed her more than anything else. Just, how did the woman dare to tempt her with forbidden knowledge? What was she aware of that was slipping past the general’s radar? (…it was important, that much she could tell. Within that word, some sort of greater understanding was hiding-- the key to everything that had been lost, and much, much more. The key to herself, or at least those parts of her that Seraphina remained silent about. Did she also not know? Nothing ever escaped the queen’s attention, the general knew that much, and yet… yet there were fragments of her missing, like a puzzle without the most important pieces. Like a photograph, with the subject’s face scratched out. Why? Why would Seraphina be content with that paltry, incomplete version of her partner’s self? Maybe she doesn’t need me whole. Maybe she is happy with the outline, for she gets to dye it in her colors. That… wasn’t too horrible, was it? An artist like her wife lived not when she wasn’t creating, and in becoming her canvas, Azrael finally found her purpose.)

Well, no, not quite. You know what her other purpose was? Seeking out traitors, and feeding them steel. Teaching those worms that, regardless of how intricate their plans were, oath-breaking was their ticket to hell-- more than that, she was to lead them there, through a path filled with ashes and flames. ‘In obedience, happiness.’ And, ah, wasn’t that true? Had everyone understood the importance of the mantra, Azrael wouldn’t have had to stain her hands nearly as much! (…thank the Shade for their existence, though. A sword not used was a waste of space, wasn’t it? And so she would cut, cut, cut, through their flesh and unworthy bones, till her own soul fucking shattered. Then, maybe, the general would find a semblance of peace.)

“And good day to you,” Azrael smiled sweetly, turning around just in time to block that first blow. “Are you quite alright, woman? I mean, botching a surprise attack does take a special kind of stupid-- I was just thinking to check in with you, for cutting up one who is feeling unwell would bring me no joy. Regardless of your crime, you should receive your sentence lucid.” (Of course, that was a lie. A sword cared not for the state of its prey, much like lightning didn’t care at all where it struck. Foolish emotions like that only made you weaker in the end, and so Azrael wouldn’t indulge! Sharp she had to remain, sharp like the blade that she was using, and all things human would only dull that edge, ruin it more than rust ever could. So, why was she saying all of that? Well… an opponent’s mind was a weapon, too. Whether it ended up pointed at Azrael’s neck or pressed against the attacker’s own heart, that was something that she could influence!)

“Let’s dance, shall we?” she bowed deeply, in a mockery of true politeness. (The arrows were flying through the air, arrows and bullets and debris, but the general noticed it not. Instead, her eyes were fixed on the stranger’s face-- on the stranger who felt much more than that, somehow. Who are you? What secrets are you hiding? …eh, that mattered not. All she was was a sack of flash, and soon enough, Azrael would help her understand.) “Make it fun for me, woman, and I may flay you after I take your organs. Which one should I claim first, hmm? Your traitorous heart, or perhaps your stomach? Or would you like for me to start with your tongue? With it, you spoke betrayal into existence, and so I’m thinking it would only be fitting.”

Clang!

The sounds of steel clashing against steel joined the cacophony, again and again and again, its melody rising far above the others. Yes! Azrael thought, a strange light in her eyes. Yes, give me your best! Give me everything, everything that you are and ever have been, because you owe that to me. The entire rebellion does. You’ve stolen my own essence from me, and in turn, you must turn to dust. “Where is the snake?” she barked out, backing the woman into the corner. (Both of them were bathing in their own cold sweat by now, though Azrael cared not. She felt alive, more alive than she had in weeks, and--) “You won’t tell me?” The smile that settled on her lips wasn’t pretty, and only really communicated one message. (‘Goodbye,’ it said. ‘Goodbye, and see you in hell.’) “Then I have no need of you. Know that your efforts were in vain, for I shall murder your princess regardless. Want to taste a little preview of that?” The armor protecting the traitor’s body had long been hacked off, so slowly, almost lovingly, Azrael drove the blade into her naked stomach. “This. This is how she’ll die,” she whispered into the woman’s ear, the cadence of her words almost feverish. (Fresh blood was gushing over her fingers, over her everything, really, but the general didn’t even appear to see it. Not truly, anyway.) “Kind of me, isn’t it?” she smirked, twisting the weapon in her wound. “That you’ll get to share the same fate! Finally, you will be more than just the piece of shit she had accidentally stepped into, Halen.”

***

(Halen. Who was Halen? Why had she called the traitor by that name? Azrael had never met her before, so this made no sense! …not that anything about this did, though. Maybe that was her own fault, though? Countless thoughts were running through her mind, with no direction at all, and, as such, collided tragically often. Not thinking at all, I suppose, would be the safest route here.)

The day was nearing its end, so Azrael had assumed her place at Seraphina’s feet. Absentmindedly, the queen was pulling at her growing hair-- each movement brought her great pain, but for that, too, the general was thankful. (“I am only helping you to stay grounded,” the queen had explained earlier. “Without that, your mind will surely wander to forbidden places. You don’t want that to happen, do you? They’ve already stolen my Azrael twice, and I don’t think I could handle it happening again.” Which, wasn't that was love was? ...no. No, it couldn't be.)

In the most holy silence, the snake's sister was being prepared to accept her fate. All things considered, Azrael honestly thought it a blessing-- when you life was hanging on a thread, cutting it off was the most merciful thing you could do! Just leaving her hanging, and waiting for the gravity to do its job... no, no, no, that would have been far more cruel.

"Relax, little one," Seraphina gave her a smile, sharper than any razor. "Soon enough, it will all end. You've been nice and obedient, so you shall be allowed to perish by my hand. Isn't that a privilege? I bet you have never let your ambitions soar so far up into the sky!"

And, if the girl had any sense, she most likely agreed with that assessment. You know who didn't, though? The serpent who arrived riding a dragon of all creatures, smashing the castle walls to pieces. Verity! Immediately, the general was on her feet, wanting to... to... do something, she supposed? So mesmerizing the sight of the woman was, indeed, that it robbed her of all the words. (Beautiful, some traitorous part of her thought. Mine, another added. Naturally, Azrael silenced them both.)

"Hmm?" Seraphina raised her eyebrow, seemingly more amused than anything else. "But that's where you are wrong, you disgusting snake. The games have just begun! Azrael, my dear, don't you want to punish the traitor? For the sin of ripping your memories from your mind, I shall allow you to do whatever you want to her. Treasure this gift, for I give it away with a heavy heart."

Ah. Ah, that is what I meant to do, isn't it? It felt wrong, like crushing a precious pearl that she wanted to protect, but... well, this was no pearl. This was Verity, and her name had been etched into her sword the moment she had raised her hand against her! (If anything, those were remnants of the mind control. They had to be, as they couldn't be anything else.)

Fearless even while staring into the eyes of death, Azrael reached for her sword. "A dragon? Are you not ashamed, princess of filth? Come down and face me, if you find the courage! My sword has been hungry for your blood, so I should like to feed it. Fight me now."
 
Lost. Her eyes sweep over to the woman standing next to Seraphina and, as has happened so many Times before, her world shatters. (This Time, however, the pieces all fall down a grate and she is not sure she will be able to recover them. How can she?) Her eyes freeze on the hollow woman who should be her wife and yet looks nothing like her. (It's not the short hair. It's not the robotic arm and hands. It's her eyes, the ones that held more life and secrets than the ocean itself yet now are reduced to dead pools. This woman is far too sunken to be the spark behind her starlight.) 'What has she done to you, my dandy lion? Where has she taken you?'

Seraphina's words exist outside of Verity's grasp. The revelation that Azrael is Iskra blocks her senses and is enough to send her backwards. That she is still standing at all is a surprise. (Perhaps the Divinities are holding her up.) "Iskra," she whispers, her throat choked and her heart leaping, almost pulling her forward to embrace her wife and lift her into the air, make her promise to never be so stupid ever again, and yet. This stranger's words cut deeper than any knife and reach parts of her she didn't know could be reached. (A stranger in her wife's skin. A stranger using her wife's voice. A stranger threatening to kill her while looking at her with her wife's eyes.) The disbelief is clear on her face, even if the clues had been in front of her nose this entire Time. (She cannot think about all the implications of Azrael being Iskra, being her wife. She cannot think of what Iskra has done under this name. She cannot. She must not. It is not who she knows Iskra to be and she will not accept that this is who her wife has become.)

Azrael. Iskra. How? (She doesn't want to know how.) There is a part of her that wants to refuse this fight. After all, how can she fight against her wife? Yes, they have sparred but never have they gone to blows before. Can she handle that? Knowing that each Time that serrated edge cuts through the air, it's aiming to kill her? Because somehow her wife believes her to be an enemy? That she is so infected with Seraphina's poison, she has come to believe that Verity has stolen her memories from her? (Those implications worry the princess, too, and so she cannot think of them either.) It seems nearly impossible to keep a clear head and yet, she must. If this is how she is to bring Iskra and her sisters home, then she must. (If Azrael retains any traits from her Iskra, then she knows she won't go easy and when she says her blade thirsts for her blood, she does not doubt it.)

She turns her heart to stone, her gaze to daggers, and raises her weapon. She is not fighting against Iskra, she decides. She is fighting for her.

"Bold words from a woman who serves the incarnation of evil and wickedness," Verity fires back, the edge in her voice returned. "Cowards often cling to those they believe can protect them while the mighty stand on their own. Between the two of us, how can you call yourself courageous at all?" No, she doesn't believe any of this. Iskra is brave. Iskra is a woman who has stood up to tyranny before and perhaps that is who the princess hopes to reach––hoping, maybe, her wife is still in there behind those dead, dead eyes. 'I am your guiding star, follow me,' she prays, as their blades meet for the first Time.

The teeth on Iskra's new blade are something Verity learns very quickly to be wary of. Each Time their swords lock together, she is at a distinct disadvantage and can feel her own sword being pried from her fingers as the other woman tries to wrest it from her. She adapts, of course, and makes sure to keep their collisions brief. Somewhere, it's comforting to know that while Iskra is lost, she fights as she always has. (It's comfort, too, to confirm that Iskra never held back. In that, she is does not need to worry about what tricks her opponent might use for they are her tricks, too.) "You do quite well for a paltry imitation," she compliments, "Who trained you? Because I think she forgot to teach you about pacing." Recalling their first duel and how quickly Iskra was able to dominate her, she strikes in a more aggressive manner and takes control of the pace with relative ease. She is as merciless as a riptide and Iskra's only chance of survival depends on her not resisting and going with the flow.

"Oh, come now, my love," Seraphina chides in the background, "Show this bitch what your new arm can do!"
 
General Azrael, Seraphina's soldiers said, was ice itself. In her veins, no blood could be found, regardless of how deep you cut-- always, always would your blade find nothing, for every bit of warmth had been drained away from her. More than human, she was a concept, you see? The angel of death, who sowed destruction with each step. A woman who had lost herself, only capable of finding joy in shattering those who knew their way. (Those who knew better, in other words. The false prophets, bearing a message the general didn't approve of.) Broken bodies marked the path she had chosen, a whole mountain of them, and yet, yet genuine emotion ever crossed her face!

...well, till now, at the very least. Because, when the snake dared to insult her so? When the gross insinuation fell from her lips, like rotten fruit from a twisted tree? Anger flared up in Azrael's chest, with all the gusto of a spark setting gasoline on fire!

"Courage? What could you possibly know about it, princess?" she spat out, her eyes... well, not exactly alive, but less dead than before. Something awakened in her, that much was certain. (Was it good or bad? A step forward, or two steps back? From Azrael's expression alone, it was impossible to tell.)

"No, don't answer that question! I see you, and I know what kind of person you are. You believe that there is shame in service, don't you? That women like myself bend their backs like blades of grass, and allow their betters to walk all over them. That we are just things for others to use. You, of course, would never debase yourself like that! No, you are a princess, and thus inherently better than everyone else. The knower of things, wearing her truth proudly on her sleeve. In your mind, you most likely came here to save us all. But tell me, snake, what does the planet need more? Fresh grass for others to feast on, or those who would burn it? Blessed order, or more chaos? Because, in your blindness, you've only destroyed that which you were trying to protect!" With no resistance, you see, Seraphina never would have had to crush the rebels with an iron fist. Never, never, never! Azrael wouldn't have had to do all those things, either, and her hands would have been clean, and... no, no point in crying over blood already spilled. That would have been most foolish. They deserved it, all of them. For their weakness, they were always destined to perish. How am I to blame, if they forced me to drive the blade in their hearts?

Azrael's blows were merciless, merciless and fiercer than a thunderstorm, but somehow... well, somehow, the princess managed to hold her own. Perhaps the arena had prepared them better than she'd previously thought? (A lot of the moves felt familiar, too. She'd seen them somewhere, perhaps in a past life, and ah, why did that scare her so? The general couldn't tell, much to her frustration. ...lately, all the things that she didn't know would be enough to fill the pages of the greatest library in the universe. The shards of her memories were there, she knew, but what were they good for? Each time Azrael reached for them, they only shattered further! If I cannot have them, then I must erase them from existence. They are a source of confusion, and so they must go. What good is a soldier whose blade wavers? No, the general had to steel what remained of her dead, rotting heart.)

"Don't speak to me of courage, traitor. Had you known what it is, you would have sacrificed your pride for your people!" Azrael shouted, her onslaught only growing fiercer. (The steel in her hands? It was so hot, indeed, that it almost matched her boiling blood! Every single clash of steel, every strike that she parried, only made her more certain of the righteousness of her cause. The snake must perish, she re-affirmed. Like a tumor, I will cut her out, and the land itself shall heal. Afterwards, Seraphina will... 'Seraphina will never love you,' a different voice joined the conversation. It was a voice that visited her often, although uninvited-- one poisoned by doubts, doubtlessly planted by the blasted traitor. 'She won't, because she can't. Her love is a paltry thing, like a flashlight next to the real sun. Is that the star you wish to follow?' But, the thing was, Azrael had nobody else. How could beggars be choosers, after all? It was either Seraphina or nothing, this cold, cruel queen or the dead volcano of her own soul, and... uh, when she hurt her, the soldier could at least focus on that. On knowing that, in time, she would be molded into something much more acceptable than her current shape. On the sweet, sweet pain that she knew she deserved, too.)

"Imitation?" Azrael gasped, entirely scandalized. "Who do you think turned me into this? You did it, you and your wicked sorceries!" (The princess pushed her on the defensive, she did realize that, but at that point, the waterfall of words could not be contained. Couldn't, couldn't, couldn't! The dam had been broken, the Rubicon crossed, and now the general wanted her damned answers.) "Why would you try to take everything from me? What have I ever done to you? I was so happy," allegedly, "and then you had to shatter it all. Do you enjoy it, perhaps? Seeing others in pain?" (Tears glistened in her eyes as well, but furiously, Azrael blinked them away. No, now wasn't the time for weakness! ...it never was, in her world.)
 
The litany of criticism does not touch the princess. Ages ago she may have gawked at such claims, felt defensive, and attacked in response but everything this false Iskra says are nothing to the princess who knows who she is. She knows she does not make steps out of other women's backs and she knows that Iskra knows this too. (The trouble is, Iskra doesn't seem to know who she is and Verity is not sure how she can pierce through whatever veil is covering her eyes to get her wife to see her, to see the truth.) "What greater service is there than a princess to her country? We are not mere pretty dolls for our subjects to fawn over and dote upon. We are the shield and sword as much as any soldier and if you cannot see that, then I pity you for serving princesses and queens who do not understand what it means to be a leader more than just a ruler."

"I do not deny my mistakes. I am not infallible as much as I wish I could be," she continues, her blade never stopping despite Iskra's best efforts to knock her down. She stands strong because she knows she fights for something greater and there is nothing in this universe that will keep her from getting her family back, from knocking Seraphina down as she should have before. "But my imperfections have sharpened me and made me the woman I am today. I carry my blade with more grace now and deliver my sentences with caution." Purposefully, she tries to weave in the same lessons that the pirate once taught her when they were mere fawns learning to take their first steps. This was true to Iskra once and maybe it is true to her even now. If anything, she hopes it will touch some part of her with its familiarity and bring her out of whatever darkness has claimed her. "With how much power a leader has, her hand should be light. A true leader has nothing to Fear in the face of dissent, but a spineless tyrant knows nothing except for Fear. She stuffs her ears with wax and cotton and backhands the entire nation. A leader humbles herself and meets her people on their level. Who is it that you serve? Who is that you wish to serve? I sense a rebel heart deep within you, as if this were a path you have walked before. Curious," she shrugs, as if what she says is nothing and as if she is not trying to awaken the queenslayer, oathbreaker within her lost wife.

Her arms ache, sweat trickles down her back and soaks her through, but Verity does not notice. She can feel the blisters on her hands splitting, but what is a little Pain to the gaping hole in her chest? She will not take her attention away from her wife, who she can see struggling to grasp onto threads that just aren't there. It pains her to her wife this way. (In so many ways, this is not her wife at all but just her shell. A shell that has been filled with poison and rot. A shell that has been broken and glued back together with all the wrong parts.) 'I will have my vengeance on the woman who did this to you, my Iskra. I will not let her get away with twisting you into this ugly shape. You will shine again. You will!'

"I have destroyed nothing," she shouts, her voice firm as she relishes the truth of her statement for the first Time. It seems to embolden her, too, as now their swords spark each Time they clash and the heavens can be heard cheering with each swing of her blade. "My actions did nothing to bring destruction to this land. That was a choice made when the cries of the people were seen as a threat and not an invitation to strengthen the nation. Quieting cries with Death and punishment solves nothing. It only causes those to suffer in silence until they have nothing to lose. Do you know who is worse than a tyrant? A woman who has lost everything," venom drips from her words though whether she is speaking to Iskra or threatening the queen is unknown. More than likely it is both. In fact, remembering how much has been taken from her, how much she has lost and will never recover, how her home, her friends, her mothers, her sisters, her wife have all been pried from her arms? The princess seems to be reinvigorated with a new sense of fire, despite her exhaustion and her bones that scream at her to stop. "Choose your enemies wisely, because I am not the one you want to face."

Almost, for the briefest second, does Verity drop her blade. Almost is she tempted to run up to Iskra and grab her face and scream at her that she is not who made her this way. She wants so desperately to wipe those tears from her eyes and rest Iskra's head on her chest until she is protected from everything that is trying to grind her up. But she cannot do that. As much as it pains her, she cannot. There are tears mirroring the pirates own, but she quells them with one harsh blink. There is no Time for distraction.

"You were happy," she confirms, "but not with this false Life you live. You were something else once. A free woman who belonged to no one, not even the stars. I would not dream of wresting that from you or anyone. Divinities will surely punish those who dare mess with such a untempered spirit. But I suspect you know a woman who would commit such a crime." She pauses for a moment then, as she swings her blade, asks, "Tell me, if you know courage so well, is the dandelion brave for always reaching for the planet's core or is it a fool? And what even separates the two?"

The first Time Iskra leaves herself open, Verity knocks her sword from her hand and then kicks her backwards. She rests the tip of her blade under Iskra's chin and lifts her chin up. "You fought well and there is no shame in your loss. Would you like to go again?"
 
She was a sword. A sword, made from the finest steel-- nothing could possibly dull her edge, for it was hidden deep within her own heart. For the heat of the battle she'd been born, and, as Azrael knew, in battle she would also perish. How not? Was there a more fitting fate for a weapon? Rivers of blood she had shed, so to the general, it also made sense that she'd drown in them. ('That which you abuse will end you, Azrael had once read. 'The universe has a way of claiming its debts.') The thought had seemed terrifying to her once, but now? Now, after she had witnessed the horrors created by her own hand? Azrael was no longer afraid, because she deserved exactly that. Every thorn in her side, every arrowhead tearing at her flesh, and everything that fate would throw at her! ...there was one thing that she wasn't prepared for, though. A weapon that she knew not how to counter, for she had never sparred with it before. And, you know what it was? A question. A whole flurry of them, pointing out the chinks in her armor! (The chinks in her armor that Azrael had no idea about, either. They were continent-sized, gaping maws, and yet they had somehow escaped her attention, existing in the trenches too treacherous for her to reach. ...how many of them were there? The questions without answers, each a flaming whip in her mind? More than there were stars in the sky, or snowflakes in a winter storm.)

"Silence!" Azrael commanded, her voice trembling. "I will not listen to your lies." The princess was shrewd, and thus knew how to wrap them in the coating of truthfulness, but what did that matter? It wasn't all gold that glittered! (With her pretty mouth, the snake only spewed falsehoods. Its instincts demanded it. Such was its nature, just like a cat could only meow and a dog bark-- expecting anything else would have been foolishness, akin to thinking chocolate would rain from the skies. Don't listen to her, Azrael reminded herself. The traitor will only poison her mind further. Do you want that to happen? A few more steps into the darkness, and you shall not find your way back. Not ever. Seraphina had warned her before this outcome as well! Wasn't that the purest, deepest expression of her love? The proof that she cared? ...the only one that Azrael could think of, actually. Not a single caress of her had ever felt different to the kiss of a whip, leaving behind trails of fire on her exposed skin.) "No. No! Shut up. I have no need of your words," she shrieked. "I don't want to." (Before her eyes, her entire galaxy crumbled. The very foundations of her universe were shaking, shaking, shaking, as if it was a mere house of cards, and there the snake stood, laughing! As if her pain didn't matter at all. As if she had the right to comment upon any of that, and dissect the most private of her thoughts. Where had that audacity come from?)

"I need not answer any of that. You purged all the roots of my thoughts, and then you mock me because I cannot trace them? Without my compass, I'm lost. This is your shame, not mine-- I shall not blame myself for something that you did to me." No, no, no! Never again would Azrael fall for that, even if what the snake said sounded... well, familiar. Intimate, almost, like an old shirt that she had worn for years. (How? Why? Had the princess extracted the thoughts from her mind, only to feed it to her later? Was this an attempt to gain her trust? It mattered not how much honey she smeared over her lips, for Azrael knew better than that!)

A free woman, the snake then said. Belonging to no-one. The words echoed in her head, over and over, their resonance almost spell-like. (A divine mantra, according to which women had been spun out of starlight. Could that be?) "But I am free," Azrael said, her tone uncertain. "As free as a woman like myself can be. A sword I might be, but I get to decide where it as aimed. Is that not true freedom?" There was no mistaking that her conviction stood on feet of clay, though-- the faintest push could topple it over, and send it tumbling straight into the pits of hell. What has she done to me?! Had her spell tainted my mind again?) Ah, such a weak, weak specimen she was! Unworthy of either Seraphina's affections, or the lovely new arm that she'd given her.

"Courageous," Azrael blurted out, for reasons she couldn't fathom. "That, and nothing else, is the true definition of bravery. That is--"

Whoosh!

In utter disbelief, Azrael stared at the blade that was no longer in her head, but instead lying on the floor. (A disgrace. A loss, now etched into her very bones. There was no shame? In a way, the snake was true-- shame was too weak of a word, you see, for the general was staring in the face of her own annihilation. Who needed a weapon that could no longer cut down an enemy, huh?) "No. No, I do not wish for a rematch," Azrael spat out. "Kill me, Verity. I have failed in my task, so there's nothing else left for me. End this farce."
 
It's becoming harder to quiet the storm in her chest the more she watches Iskra struggle with herself. So much of her wants to unleash hell on the woman who turned her Iskra into such a mess of limbs, but with no assurance that she's back on her side she knows it's much too dangerous to go after Seraphina. Not when the dutiful soldier has come back in place of her fearsome pirate captain. Iskra in this state will kill her. (It is hard, impossibly hard to face Iskra knowing this. It is even harder still for her to listen to the fragments her wife shares and put together the pieces of what she has become and what lies the queen has poured into her. She dare not think of the specifics, of what her wife endured and how this all happened because Verity could not back down from Seraphina's bait. How she couldn't pull her lifeless body into her arms and carry her away with her. That wasn't her fault and she knows it, but in the fantasy world she built where they both escaped, she imagines it as a very real possibility even if they never stood a chance. One of them was going to fall into Seraphina's hands that night.)

When the woman in front of her makes her so weak, she almost crumbles. She almost begs with Time to take her back so that she can take her wife's place but she knows the Divinity will not grant such a request. This path has already been carved and now they must walk along it. There is still forward and perhaps she can influence the direction if she just holds fast to the Iskra she knows is in there. (The little glimpses are coming out through her words, through her cries. She can hear Iskra breaking free––or she hopes that's what it is. She hopes she is not dreaming a scene that only exists in her mind.)

"I am not the woman who took a siphon to your thoughts," she says with such firmness in her voice it's like a divinity casting her judgment. In her tone, she dares the soldier to doubt her. She presses the tip of the blade closer to Iskra's throat, but does not break skin. "I am not the woman who shackled you to this idea of freedom, either. I knew a soldier like you who had a much grander vision of what it meant to be free. She understood that the most powerful word in her arsenal was, 'No,' and in that single syllable she tasted freedom for the first Time. Should you like to try it on your tongue, I will defend you against whatever repercussion you may face for I doubt your current mistress will take kindly to such an utterance."

Though when Iskra... No, Azrael? No, not her either. When the shell asks Verity to end her, however? Sorrow is reflected in her sea green gaze. Iskra would never give up like this. She pulls back her steel and rests it on the soldier's shoulder. Then, she bends down and caresses her growing hair, her hand lighter than a feather and twice as soft. "No, Iskra. There is an entire galaxy out there for you and Death is the one place I refuse to take you towards. That is not where a guiding star leads her dandy lion. You are so much more than your ability to slay a queen's enemy."

Verity is not done trying to bring her wife back to her, but Seraphina seems to be done with the display as her laugh cuts through the air like a whip, seconded by the sound of her drawing her weapons. And before the princess can even react to that, the queen's shadow creeps over her and a second later she feels that famed spear skewer her shoulder. "Oh, Verity, you always were a stupid bitch. Always desperately clinging to scraps like some stray dog. Don't you know when to let go? Don't you know that Azrael is mine. Isn't that right, my love?" she asks, shoving the spear straight through her shoulder, then twisting it so that she can pull the princess backwards, pulling her against her body like a shield. She bites her earlobe like the mockery of a lover. "She doesn't belong to you, snake. I had to free my Azrael from your wickedness so that she could become the masterpiece that she is––without myself she would still be a floundering whelp with no purpose as that is surely what you wanted to make of this immortal hound. Thanks to my blessing, however, she will become as divine as myself and we will birth a new regime."

When the spear pierces through the princess's shoulder she cries, her eyes closing tightly, and her hand flying up to the wound. Then when the spear is pushed further in, stars dance behind her eyes and cover her vision. She doesn't even realize she's been pulled backwards. In her mind, she only focuses on Iskra, her smiles, her wit, her everything to bring her to some place of calm. "Y-you are the pathetic one, Seraphina. You cannot even hear your country dying over the sounds of your own delusions." (And when one focuses their attention outside of this chamber, the sound of the Restoration getting closer can be heard as well as the shouts of angry women filling the streets. The dragon's roar sails through the air as she flames the women not smart enough to change their allegiance.)

"You are wrong," Seraphina snaps, threatening to pull her spear out and create a wider tear in Verity's shoulder. "This is my beginning––this is where I finally wrest my destiny from the Divinities." Crazed conviction drips from her words and it almost makes Verity weep. Almost. She no longer has empathy in her heart for the queen who threw away hers. "Let me reunite you with your mothers and sisters, snake. Don't you miss them? Don't worry, I'll send your wife to you as well. Once I'm done with her. She really is quite the riot, however, so I may want to keep her for a while. No hard feelings, though, we've always shared our women." Then an idea seems to dance through the queen's head and her soulless gaze locks onto the soldier. "Azrael, my flame, rip out the traitor's heart. We can feast on it for dinner as we celebrate our Victory."
 
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Once, what seemed to be an eternity ago, Azrael believed she knew what pain was. It was your muscles, straining not to snap under pressure; the blade of an enemy’s sword stuck in your guts; the precious spark of life leaving your body, oh so slowly, and turning your veins to ice. And, yes, all of that was painful, indeed! …except that nothing, nothing on the list hurt even remotely as much as the word ‘no,’ falling casually from the princess’s lips. Did I once wield such a power? the general asked herself, knowing full well that no answer would come. (From the darkness that her mind had become, you see, no enlightenment could arise. Just like you couldn’t expect mercy from an executioner’s sword, you could not expect understanding from… well, from someone like her. From one who had lost herself so thoroughly that she could no longer tell right from left, or good from evil.) Did I know how to fell empires with a few syllables? Were others afraid of my voice, too? The snake spun her stories out of colorful yarn, glimmering in the sunlight-- it was an innocent, delicate thing, easy to look at and even easier to love, and yet… well, yet Azrael couldn’t help but be afraid of it. Of her. Had she not shattered her willpower with a few words, after all? Had she not brought her to her knees, with the weight of possibilities only? (What if, what if, what if. That, Azrael was convinced, was the cruelest phrase-- fraught with uncertainty, plagued with doubt, but also full of hope. What if she was right? What if she was wrong? Both options were absolutely devastating, each in a different way.)

“You don’t understand,” Azrael choked. “I must die. I must. Failure only breeds more failure, and I…” won’t handle more punishment, “…cannot lead with such a poor example. That would be disgraceful. A soldier… needs to know when to put her sword down.” (Maybe, this time around, the Shade would finally claim its due. Azrael knew not much about herself, but she did know about the ancient debt--about the promise between herself and the entity keeping her alive, made long before her very birth. ‘One day,’ Seraphina had told her, ‘you shall be taken away from me, my love. Death will come for you for real. A new life will burst forth from your belly, and to nurture it, you will sacrifice your flesh. Unfortunate, but this is the price that you pay.’ And, the strangest thing about it? Instead of dreading the moment, the general couldn’t wait. Just, why was she still there? To fill her lungs with oxygen, and her stomach with food? To let Seraphina satisfy whatever twisted whim that came to her mind, solely because she’d said ‘yes’ all those years ago? …her existence was empty, like the pages of a diary never filled. A quenched star, still shining from afar, but ultimately dead. Why did that infuriating woman seem to think otherwise? Why oh why wouldn’t she let go? All her life, Azrael had done what they had required from her, and now she only wished to rest! …for too long, her fingers had hurt. She had tried, with all her might, to hold onto the edge of that mountain-- her entire weight had relied on them, as well as the weight of those who followed her. All this time, it had been foolishness, hadn’t it? To stake everything on a single card, a card named Iskra--)

“Stop,” the general begged, fighting against the bitter tears in her eyes. “Don’t mention that name. It’s…” connected to something that scares me, more than I can say, “…it’s cursed. I know it. The one who dares to utter it shall be punished, the souls of her ancestors purged. You cannot. Cannot, do you hear me? I… ah.” Ah, as in ‘ah, she’s dead.’ Like a compass always found north, you see, Seraphina’s spear found its target! The target happened to be the princess’s shoulder, now stained with her own blood. “Verity,” Azrael whispered, watching with quiet horror as the stain grew, grew, grew, turning her shirt scarlet.

(Verity, giggling quietly in a sea of flowers. A butterfly had landed on her hair, and showed no signs of leaving. “See?” Azrael could hear her own voice, uncharacteristically joyful. “They know what the most beautiful blossom around is.”)

(Verity, swaying her hips to the rhythm of some bawdy song. Everyone was staring, staring with those greedy eyes of theirs, and no, they didn’t have the right! Only Iskra did, and so she reached for her coat--)

(Verity whose lips were getting close, so close that she could taste them, and, by the Shade, the heat…!)

‘Your wife,’ Seraphina said then, and everything, everything fell into place. (The puzzle pieces that didn’t fit? Oh, but they did! When you weren’t trying to make them form another picture entirely that was-- one that they had never been marked with, and never would. A dark, twisted mirror of actual reality, staring her right in the face. That’s me, Azrael realized. Her wife. Verity’s wife.)

With a renewed passion, the general grabbed her sword. (It wasn’t her sword, she realized now, in the sense that it hadn’t been made for her hand, but what did it matter? A weapon was a weapon, and any of them would do. As long as the blade was sharp enough, Azrael would make do with it.)

The anger within her was a raging storm, but she calmed it still. What was fury for if it couldn’t be aimed at the right target, after all? Mere theatrics, for the sole pleasure of the main actor. Foolishness incarnate. “Of course, my love,” she muttered, her head bowed. “I cannot wait for the moment my sword finally tastes the snake’s flesh. I do apologize for making you wait for so long-- I know that no excuse in the galaxy will do, but I wasn’t myself. In fact, I am not certain if I will ever be like that again. But…” she offered Verity a hint of a small, shy smile, “…perhaps this is the first step.” And, with that? With that, she cut off Seraphina’s spear arm, with a wet 'splash'.

“This is for my arm, bitch. For my arm, and for all the lies that you forced down my throat!”
 
She knows not how or why, but for as much conviction as Seraphina has over her own destiny, Verity is equally certain she is not dying today. While pain shoots down her arm, to the tips of her fingers, and radiates over her chest and back, she knows that she will somehow come out of this. (Or is she just as deluded as the queen?) Her vision is blurry, full of tears, and it's hard for her to keep them open and focused on Iskra. (If she can keep her eyes on her, the woman she fights so fiercely for, perhaps strength will spread through her veins and she'll be able to turn the tide. She just needs a minute to think.) Though thinking would be much easier if the queen weren't demanding so much of her attention.

With the order that own wife tear out her heart, Verity does start to panic. Where she knows that this is not her end, she does not know whether or not she's said or done enough to prove to her Iskra that she is not the snake and she worries what she will have to do make it out of this with both of them still alive. Her worry, however, is distracted when Seraphina yanks on her spear again, forcing all of her thoughts to be swept away as she cries out, her vision flashing. When her vision clears, her eyes settle on her wife and she sees that hungry blade in her hand. Her heart pounds inside her chest and she can feel Seraphina pressing herself closer against her back to feel it.

"That's it, my Azrael," Seraphina coos, gripping Verity's other arm with bruising force.

For only a second does the princess doubt her pirate. After that, however? Her double edged words are immediately taken as a sign for the princess to hope. That small smile, even, is enough to shatter all her doubts and automatically she meets it with one of her own. Somehow knowing exactly what Iskra plans to do, she shifts herself as the sword is brought down to give Iskra better access to the queen's arm. The limb falls to the ground with a thud. Verity ends up wincing if only because of the force of the arm falling off of the spear and Seraphina's shriek in her ear. She lets none of that distract her and elbows the queen, sending her to the ground, and quickly turns to aligns herself with Iskra.

Still, it is not the Time for a reunion. (And she isn't certain she'll get the one she's imagined. The pirate more or less has told her she is permanently changed, but that is her a later version of herself to cope with.) Right now there is still the queen to deal with, whose disbelief is so plain on her face that Verity can practically hear the delusions her mind is spinning. She looks lost, maybe frightened, but more than anything she appears enraged. "Azrael!" she shouts, not able to give up the fantasy she's created, "Azrael, how could you!? Don't you see the snake––sh-she's poisoning you once more!"

"Give it up, Seraphina," Verity commands, gripping the spear still stuck in her shoulder. She kicks the dismembered arm further from the other woman and bends down close to her. "This is the only destiny you have manifested for yourself." She reaches for the scimitar at the queen's hip and pulls it from its scabbard. (Hundreds of new voices enter Verity's mind at once, a surge coursing through her as the talisman activates in her grasp. 'Unworthy,' they all agree, 'She is unworthy. Unfit. Remove her.') She presses the tip of the scimitar to Seraphina's left eye, the same one where her own scar resides. "If you cannot see that, then perhaps this will enlighten you." She pierces that soulless depth while the other woman gasps and grunts, uncomprehending of the shift or her power slipping through her fingers.

"You bitch," she seethes, the nub that was her arm rising to try and summon her spear before she's forced to remember what happened only moments ago. Still, it's unlike Seraphina to stay down and despite the pain she must be in, she scrambles away from Verity (or tries). But the princess just jams her heel down on her left knee, cracking the joint, before she steps on her chest.

"There will be no mercy for you, I hope you know. This warning is the last kindness I shall ever extend to you, snake," she sneers and with that, Verity pierces her right eye. She pulls the scimitar from the eye socket, straightens, and shoves her boot once more into the queen's chest then turns to face Iskra. (Somehow it's infinitely worse to face her. Probably because she no longer knows who she is looking at.) "I––" she starts then quiets, remembering that twisted look on her wife's face the last Time she said her name. Since she refuses to refer to her as Azrael, she settles on nothing at all. "How shall her story end?"
 
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You know that peculiar feeling, somewhere between grief and joy? Teetering on the thin, thin boundary between the two, and having no idea where you’d end up falling? That was roughly what Azrael felt like now, if she were to be completely honest. Yes, Seraphina was poison, she realized that now. Given enough time, she would have ground her bones to dust, and drunk all of her blood from a fancy little cup-- there would have nothing left of her, for even the memory would have been twisted. Regardless, she was still something, you see? A tiny island of certainty, standing firm in the seas of chaos. ‘Come to me, my Azrael,’ she’d say, and she’d hurt her, hurt her so, so much, but… well, that was a routine as well. Something to hold on to, in the absence of everything else. Could this woman, this Verity, do the same for her? And did she even want to? …her wife, rang in her ears, over and over. Once, the princess had apparently loved her, but was that still true? Was there anything left to love, among the ashes of the woman she had once been? (Marriage was for eternity, they said. In joining your lives together, you promised to walk the same path-- to try, as hard as you could, not to stray away. ‘Try’ was the key word, though. Had their paths not diverged already, after all? Iskra had died, over and over and over, and, in her place, an impostor now stood! What did it matter that she was wearing her skin? That she didn’t want to be wearing it, no more than she wanted to host the Shade inside of her? Ah, no, her feelings didn’t enter into it! Such a mess, Azrael thought. I don’t even know where to start untangling it.)

“I see only one snake here, Seraphina, and that is you,” she countered, her eyes icy. (No, the queen would not get more out of her-- so far, she’d taken, taken and taken, everything that she had been willing to give her and even more than that. Happily, she’d and gorged herself on her tears. Why provide her with further sustenance, then? Why give her anything at all, aside from the peace of a grave? If there was any reason supporting that conclusion, Azrael didn’t see it.) “Don’t you see how unseemly you’re being? And you dare call yourself a queen?” The former general lifted her chin high and snorted, as if she was looking at a cockroach who had defiled her home with its mere presence. At a creature so far beneath her in the universal hierarchy that it wasn’t worthy of even looking her in the eye, let alone actually speaking to her. (And, truly wasn’t that an insightful analysis? No queen in this galaxy who had had to lie her way to power truly owned it, despite the crown resting on her head. Hers was a hollow victory-- a cheap replica, unable to withstand the slightest tremors. Already, it was crumbling! …crumbling, crumbling, falling into dust-sized pieces. Her Azrael? she thought, with some amount of satisfaction. Perhaps she did own that woman, but I am not her. Never have been. Iskra still knew not who she was, mind you, but there was also some enjoyment to be found in assessing who she was not. And, in this particular case? She wasn’t Seraphina’s slave.)

“Game over, Seraphina. Accept your demise or not, but it will come for you nonetheless. Better not prolong it too much, hm? You might want to preserve an illusion of dignity, if nothing else.” She stared at the woman, now stained by her own blood-- somewhere in there, she could see the shadow of a queen, but more prominent than that was the hurt little girl, crying because she’d lost her favorite toy. How have I ever been afraid of her? (Come to think of it, maybe she had never been afraid of Seraphina per se. Not in any meaningful way. More than that, she’d cowered from the emptiness, from the darkness threatening to swallow her whole, and really, wasn’t that easier to conceptualize through assigning a face to it? The face of one who had carved so much off you, till a pathetic stump was all that was left? Ah, indeed! Sometimes, your mind could be your own worst enemy, wielding the most effective of weapons.)

“I should think she deserves to lose at least one more limb,” Iskra said, her tone not betraying a single emotion. (To an outside observer, she might as well have been discussing what to have for dinner, or perhaps which coat to wear for an outing tonight. Seraphina thrived from attention, you see? So, even this close to death, the general would deprive her of it, and watch her shrivel. You are nothing to me, you disgusting, weak beast. A mere obstacle on my path, to be forgotten in a few weeks. How come you ever dared to touch me at all?) “And a tongue as well, while we’re at it. Given how fixated on snakes she was, I’m thinking that her own mouth is filled with venom. Afterwards, do what you will with her. I am not familiar with the details, but I imagine that you have… hmm, a few choice words to say to her as well. But, princess,” she turned to her, her expression crestfallen all of a sudden, “how does our story end? I fear that most of the chapters have been erased. I… I still don’t remember you. I only know that she was a false lead, but I am not certain that that is enough.” ('It isn't,' her eyes said. 'Not after all the atrocities I have committed.')
 
Empires take miracles to build. Miracles, dreams, the tenacity of the people who live under their protection. Yet they come down as easily as a house of cards; they burn as if made of fuel. In their ruin only skeletons and ghosts and hints of what was are left. Verity is still holding onto the empire she built with Iskra. It exists in her heart, that she can feel breaking, but she knows if she can hold onto this breath she's been holding since losing Iskra, perhaps she can minimize the damage. (She knows that is a candied lie.) Perhaps she can patch up the cracks before they become too unseemly. Perhaps she can learn the secrets to Time and turn this all around. The great perhaps. The great disappointment of knowing the possibilities of that word are dreams only conjured by living at the bottom of a bottle or in the plumes of pipe smoke. Still, the princess... she can't let go of that breath just yet. So she strangles reality, knowing it's only going to produce a more volatile explosion later, because she cannot face the truth just yet.

Even when Iskra asks her that question and tries to bring their empire to ruination with that wondering. (The question she, herself, wanted to ask and just can't.) Sweat coats her palms and she almost drops the scimitar trying to figure out what to do with her hands and resolves to just holding the weapon, while her injured arm hangs limp. The princess, usually so full of words and cautious optimism, has nothing to say to that. What can she even say? That they will be fine? How can she know when she does not even know what fine is anymore? She cannot fill Iskra with more falsities just to give them a sense of hope for their story. She won't do that to either of them. But the truth is she doesn't know. This territory is uncharted and the path most recently carved is full of so much blood. (Can she blame Iskra? Logically she knows it was not Iskra. It was Azrael. ...Is there really any meaningful difference in separating the two? Frankly, she does not know who is staring at her right now. She does not know who she looks at––it's not even comparable to looking at an aged photograph, where the edges and lines are fuzzy but the details of the person can still be seen. She just has no idea what to make of this or even where to begin. Is she awful for thinking Death would have made this easier? At least she knows how to grieve that kind of loss.)

The sound of the Restoration clambering through the palace can be heard, the enemy not yet knowing their queen is as good as dead. (This is their Victory and yet its taste has never been more sour. There is no one here for her to celebrate with and she cannot help but wonder what Halen might have done and how she wishes that ice woman were still alive. She'd have known what to do. Or at least she would have offered her input and Verity could have the assurance in knowing at least one thing not to do. But she isn't here. Neither are her mothers. Or her sisters. Not even her wife, because the woman in front of her? It almost feels like an insult to both of them to think their vows still apply.) "There's... I... This is neither the Time nor the place to speak of those burnt chapters," she finally says, but it feels as though a ghost is speaking through her mouth. "Might we discuss this later?" Never would even be preferable, but avoidance has never been their tune and she suspects that is something that won't change. "There's still so much else to do..." she trails off, looking anywhere except for Iskra. The collapsed wall. The crushed pews. Seraphina muttering nothings at her feet. Her sister whimpering on the altar. 'Right.' She's not wrong that there is much to do. She's probably not even wrong that now is not the Time for such discussions. Still, it is an excuse because she is still holding onto that breath where her old Life is still possible.

She tries to hold onto the fragments from before, the ones that are not too painful to grasp. (In her memory she hears Iskra's silent plea, “Don’t… don’t run away from me, please, I can handle anything, but not that. Can we not talk about this? I… I thought that we were going to do that, instead of retreating. Do we not deserve better than that?” Back then that plea made sense, but now she doesn't know if they are those same people. She doesn't know if she can still be the princess who doesn't run from her pirate.) Still uncertain of how much distance is between herself and her––no, the blue eyed woman before her, she busies herself, staring down at the muttering woman at her feet. This, at least, is something she can focus on. The culmination of all her efforts to come back home. How bitter. (How is it that Seraphina will still succeed in taking everything from her once she's dead and how is that even fair? No matter how many limbs or tongues are hacked off it will never quell the beast that has been feasting on Verity's Grief.) She could cut off her left left, the one that's already broken, but Verity decides on her right because it strikes her as much crueler––though she cannot put in the mental effort to determine why. Seraphina shrieks once more and Verity finds it odd––for as much as the gladiator spoke of the wounds she's endured, the princess would have assumed she'd have learned how to take them with more grace. "V-Verity, please––it does not have to be this way," she begs, becoming some heaping mess and for a brief moment the princess remembers the strawberry girl and the promises they made to each other. "We can––we can fix this. It was always meant to be you an––"

The princess grabs the fallen queen's face, squeezing her at her jaw so that her mouth is forced open, tongue exposed. "Silence, filth," her voice comes out hotter than the iron core of a star, her eyes matching in intensity. So much so, she's certain the woman can feel her gaze searing into her skin despite her missing eyes. "You were never a fit queen. You were never going to make a fit queen. The council should not have selected you for their games. They probably should not have selected any of us, if I am to be honest. But what you did to claim your vengeance on their slight is irredeemable. What you did after to legitimize your power is beyond shame. When you die, know that all you accomplished was compromising your own soul in exchange for... I won't even try to guess what you gained, but I hope it was worth it. Know it is not my sentence you should Fear as the ancestors shall judge you most harshly, for it is not just your lineage you have damned." Exhaustion creeps over the princess then, all the litanies and curses she might have cast die somewhere in her throat as the realization that nothing will ever be the same again continues to press on her skull. Still she holds her breath, the same one she has been holding. There is still more for her to do. Despite the pain that shoots through her injured arm, she lifts it to grab the dagger from her belt and cuts out that rotten tongue. It doesn't bring her any satisfaction or stop the fast approaching reality from settling in, but she does it because it's what the former queen deserves. It's what the woman she fights for suggests and, well, that woman used to fight so fiercely for her and dealt executions in her name. At least she can return the favor and not let the woman's hands become any more stained. She knows the woman deserves that much.

Laboredly, she rises from her hunched over position and once more faces the most intimidating threat in the room. She holds her gaze this Time despite wanting to run. "The truth is, I don't know," she finally settles on, some part of her deciding that she owes it to their past to be honest. (Have they not fallen for each other twice over already? What's one more Time? That's the hopeful part of her speaking, because there are so many other voices crying that it's over. That what is dead shall never rise. That you cannot rebuild a home from ashes. That there is nothing but disappointment if she walks that path again. That she must learn they were not meant to be together with how many times divinities have torn them apart.) "I don't know," she repeats, finding some relief in that small truth and perhaps she'd expand more but the Restoration forces, the pirates, everyone storm in and remind her that there is still so much else to do. She sucks in another breath.
 
“I don’t know.”

Well, who possibly could?

Who, who, who?!

Certainly not her, and so she couldn’t very well fault her wife for suffering from the same affliction. (…her wife. A strange concept, wasn’t it? To think that, once, Verity had promised to love her-- to cherish her and value her, above everything else, till the stars continued to shine. That she, too, had repeated those sacred words. The Shade had a peculiar sense of humor, huh? One that was sharp, just like the obsidian thorns stuck in her sides, but funny, funny, funny, so much that tears almost filled her eyes!)

In all honesty, Iskra had initially thought it to be a mistake. All of it, really. Couldn’t there be some other woman whose likeness she reflected? Someone to whom she was a living mirror, through one of fate’s selfish whims? There were only so many genetic combinations, after all, and it wouldn’t be that strange if a doppelganger of hers existed-- a woman who shared all of her physical traits, and yet opposed her in everything else. A photograph, except that with all of the colors inverted.

‘Iskra’, the pirates had said, ‘was wise. She was not just a sword, but also a stalwart shield, and fought for what she thought to be right. So strong was her own passion that she set others’ hearts aflame! Effortlessly, for that was her nature. Her mind liked to wander, too, and with her friends, she shared the fruits of her pursuits.’ Wherever she went, it seemed, everyone had a kind word to say about this Iskra. The only problem with that, though? The woman was a stranger. A total stranger, casting a monstrous shadow from the pedestal on which she stood-- and, no matter how you looked at it, that shadow had teeth. No, really. For now, she could use it as a shelter from the sunlight, but what about the future? What would happen when, inevitably, they started to expect the very same things from her? The disappointment was sure to be bitter, and she knew not whether she wanted to experience the fallout.

Iskra wasn’t a leader. She wasn’t a lover, a friend, or a wife, or any of those labels they’d used to describe their missing captain. And, truly, as much as she hated to admit it, didn’t Seraphina’s model of her situation seem that much more realistic? That much closer to her heart? A soldier who had crawled her way to power, over the corpses of her enemies, was much more, well… her. Or what remained of her, anyway. (For how long could you get away with something like that, hmm? For how long could you make a person smaller, smaller and smaller, before you were left with nothing at all? As Iskra stared into the emptiness of the space, leaning on Inure’s railing, she had an inkling that she knew. With her, the process had gone a step too far. Several steps too far, maybe.)

The home was where your heart was, she’d heard somewhere once. The saying was terribly sentimental, barely even scratching the surface of anything meaningful, but she did have to admit that there was a queer sort of point to it. Iskra’s heart didn’t feel home anywhere, you see? Definitely not on this ship, at least, where everyone thought her to be a friend and yet knew nothing about her at all. (Then again, she knew nothing about herself, too. Perhaps we could bond over this, the pirate thought, with a humorless smile playing on her bloodless lips. We could throw her a wake, and talk about how much we would have loved for her to be with us right now. Would it be too awkward to bring flowers for my own grave, I wonder?)

So far, it seemed to Iskra that her stay on Inure was nothing but a source of awkwardness, coming from all the directions at once. It was both annoying and disorienting. The woman called Myrne might have been the worst offender-- when they’d met for the first time, she had hugged her out of the blue, only to let go almost immediately.

“I am so very sorry, captain,” she had grinned. “Don’t worry, your reputation hasn’t suffered at all while you were in captivity. We still take you very seriously around here.”

Iskra, of course, had only given her a blank look. “Not to be rude, but who are you? I do apologize, though I cannot say I remember your name.”

The smile had frozen on her lips, and since then, Myrne hadn’t really talked to her. Oh well! Perhaps they simply hadn’t been that close? If she was that Iskra of theirs, and not a phantom wearing her face. (Not a parasite who had forced her way amidst them, in the same manner a cuckoo laid eggs in a nest that it hadn’t built. Iskra didn’t remember planning anything of the sort, but what did that matter? The things that she couldn’t remember could fill a whole wide ocean, and yet, yet it didn’t make them any less true. Any less tangible, for those lucky enough not to be her.)

After a few awkward, silent hours, someone had suggested for her to go through her diaries. There wasn’t anything else to do, so the pirate figured she might as well-- it felt strange, going the memoirs of a dead woman, but nothing about this situation wasn’t not strange. Why not embrace the chaos, then? So the pirate read, read and read, and with each word, it seemed, her despair only settled deeper in her stomach. Just, how did one build a bridge between heaven and hell? Between two dimensions, separated by millions of light years? You couldn't, plain and simple. Only children believed so, stuck in a world where every story had a happy ending. "Here," she pointed at a passage, absentmindedly, "here it says that I loved you, princess. I wish that was still the case. I wish I remember what it felt like. Tell me: to you, what did that mean? This Iskra was terribly opinionated, but I wish to know what you thought of it."
 
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