From the moment I first saw her I knew I had never before seen her like. I had never found English women to be particularly fetching, wearing their corsets and spouting their courtesies like one would use an armour and sword, and cold even in the heat of passion. The women of the colonies were even less to my taste. Loud and boisterous, they seemed to seek to prove themselves. To whom, or for what purpose, I did not know, nor did I want to.
But when I first saw her, she was a queen in chains. Her eyes spoke the words her mouth would not, full of anger and mistrust even as my blade slit the carriage driver's throat and I sat down next to her, promising freedom. All throughout our collaboration, she mistrusted me. I could feel it in the way she tensed when my hidden blade slipped from its sheath, and even as I felled her enemies she was reluctant to turn her back on me. I told myself I should not care, for once the Bulldog met his end and she gave me what she had promised, I would never see her again. I often wondered, through the winter of that year, how it could be that, every time the thought crossed my mind, my heart sank.
When finally Braddock was dead and she showed the Precursor site, the disappointment of the fruitless search had been quickly alleviated by the sound of her voice as she explained her people's beliefs, and the inexplicable quickening of my heartbeat as I felt her hand feel for mine in the dimness of the cave. I know I spoke then, but I do not remember the words, as hard as I try to recall them even now. Only the feeling of her lips on mine remain vivid. I remember her avid hands and warm skin, scarred by years of a lifestyle I would never know but longed for all the same. I can recall how the mask she had worn all those months slipped away to reveal her wild, fevered eyes and inviting smile. On this day, she had been my feral queen, looking nothing short of regal even as I left her, bare and more vulnerable than I had ever seen. But despite this, I never knew the secrets of her mind. Did she think of me with the fervor and fondness as I thought of her then, and think of her still? Or did she think me nothing more than a distraction, to be discarded as soon as she grew bored?
I wish now I had sought answers to these questions years ago. Now news of her death has just reached my ears, and although it has been many years since we had last seen each other, not a single day has gone by without her sauntering through my thoughts and lingering there, often far too long.
Even now I do not know if I loved her, but I do know that never again I shall find another who completes me as she did.
Forever, she shall be my wild queen.
