This is my first go at writing Zane, so be lenient, yeah? Thanks :) I hope it is okay; I checked it about twenty times, but as it was me that checked it, that isn't really saying much. Oh well.
Disclaimer: as much as I wish, the Kiesha'ra are not mine.
The Musings of a Cobra
There were only three of us left.
Irene, Gregory and I. We were the only cobras left.
And on that day, that was the only thing that mattered to me.
Anger and hate coursed through me like wildfire. The avians were evil; how could they possibly wreck such havoc on my family? My father, my brother, my uncles, my sister and her unborn child had all been lost to their blood lust, and now my eldest brother, Anjay, was also dead.
They needed to pay.
I had heard from one of the palace guard that it was Danica Shardae's fifteenth birthday today. What a wonderful birthday present for the heir to the Tuuli Thea; the death of the Arami of the serpiente.
I needed to avenge my brother's death.
We had lost our Arami, and so would they.
It was not hard to slip past the palace guards. They believed I was just going out to grieve. Even if they did suspect something else, they wouldn't dare stop me – now that Anjay was dead, I was Arami, and they wouldn't dare go against my will. Especially not now that I was in such a foul mood.
I stole a horse – not that it would really be considered stealing, me being a cobra and all – and I started out towards Hawk's Keep. It was a long, hard ride, but I made it without too much trouble. Getting in would be the problem.
Staring up at the walls of Hawk's Keep, I realized what I should have done back in the palace. This was an avian Keep, specifically designed to repel serpiente. It was almost impossible to enter without the aid of wings.
And yet, there had to be a way.
I got of the horse and shifted to my second form, then began scouting around a bit. Eventually, I found a small, wooden pole some one had left leaning against the wall, probably after a market of some sort, or something of the like. How stupid of them.
I scaled the pole and got in through a window before tumbling to the floor. I stayed still for a couple of minutes to make sure no one had seen me, then slithered out the door and onto the first floor of the Keep. I replayed in my mind all of the conversations I had heard about the Keep's layout, then remembered that the Tuuli Thea's quarters, along with that of her children were located on the sixth floor, the second highest floor in the keep.
I swore silently when I realized that to reach it, I would have to go through the fifth floor, and the rooms that held the Royal Flight, the Tuuli Thea's guard.
Nonetheless, I made my way through the keep, staying in the shadows and keeping silent. When I started to reach the higher floors, I realized that there were beams along the ceiling that I could move along. After shifting to my human form in an abandoned room and swinging up onto a beam, I shifted back, and continued along that way. Of course, none of the avian guards think to look up while on patrol. None of their enemies have wings.
Smiling to my self, I made it to the sixth floor without any issues. However, that was when it started to get more difficult. The bedroom doors were all closed, and a snake has no way of opening a closed door, so I was forced to shift. I didn't, however, shift all the way to human form, but stayed in my demi form. This way, I would be more likely to notice if an avian guard was anywhere near.
I crept silently along the hall until I came to a door. I carefully pushed it open, immensely surprised to find it wasn't locked, and walked in.
The person I saw on the bed was not Danica Shardae. The avian was definitely a hawk, due to his colouring, but it was male.
Xavier Shardae, I thought. Danica's younger brother.
I wondered, if I were to kill Danica, whether Xavier would take the avian throne. I know that if Gregory and I were to die, Irene would become Diente, and her mate – when she chose one – would be Nag. Surely the avians had a similar system, in case all the female hawks were to decease. After all, the heir to the Tuuli Thea would die tonight.
I slid back out of Xavier's room. I has briefly considered killing him, but decided against it; Danica was the one I wanted, and the longer I stayed here, the more chance I had of being caught. My people didn't deserve to loose two Aramis in less than a day.
As I turned of the doorway, I froze. A guard was walking out of a door just down the hall, as if he had been checking on the room's occupant. I recognized him as one of the Royal Flight; a very young member, but he seemed fairly high in rank. I didn't dare move; He might notice the movement. I closed my eyes so they wouldn't glint, but kept all of my other senses alert as they possibly could be, waiting for the avian to notice me. But he didn't. I stole a glance at him cautiously once he had passed the hallway that led to Xavier's room. He seemed distracted, and very sad about something. I let it pass. Almost anything that made the avians sad was a gain for me and my people.
Once he had gone, I crept down the hall towards the room the guard had some out of. The moment I entered, I knew it was the right one.
There she was, lying on the bed, still in her day clothes. She must have fallen asleep before being able to prepare for bed. I readied myself to shift into my second form so that I could kill her with my venomous fangs, as I hadn't brought a knife, and didn't want to give her time to scream. But as I moved towards her, the moonlight came in through the window and fell on her face, causing me to pause.
She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, even though she was my sworn enemy. Her shining golden hair fell around her face perfectly, even though she had her head on a pillow, and her soft lips were slightly parted. I seemed to be in a trance, and unable to stop myself, I reached out and stroked her cheek, wanting to know if her skin was as silky as it looked, and also wishing I could provide her with some comfort. The moment I touched her however, she flinched back.
Even in sleep, a mouse can sense a cat, and a bird can sense a snake.
In that moment, the stupidity of my venture occurred to me. Why had I left the safety of my palace, risking my life and the loss of another member of the Cobriana family, to kill this beautiful creature? She did not personally kill my family. She did not start this war. She probably would not have ever wanted to cause my family and my people any harm if we hadn't harmed hers. She wasn't the one responsible for killing my brother, and killing her wouldn't bring him back. It would only make the avians fill with even more hatred, and make them attack us with even more ferocity.
Why had I even come here in the first place?
I knew the war must go on, and that we must keep fighting, but I could not kill the future leader of my enemy.
I had never killed before. How could I kill Danica Shardae, the most beautiful thing in the land, in an effort to avenge my brother – an effort that would only cause my family more grief?
How could I possibly allow myself to become such a monster?
I now know why the avians think us so cruel. They believe we have no boundaries. Are they right?
No, they can't be. I can't kill the heir to the Tuuli Thea. I, Zane Cobriana, refused to lay a hand on Danica Shardae. I thought of the boy I had seen in the room I was in before. Xavier. I remembered the pain I went through when I realized Anjay would not be coming back. Could I force this pain on some one else, even if they were the enemy?
But Xavier wasn't the enemy… was he? He was younger even than me, and couldn't have killed a serpiente yet. To him, Danica was a sister, not the heir to the Tuuli Thea, just as Anjay had been my brother, and not the Arami. I didn't want to force that pain on Xavier. Of course, if Danica were trying to kill me or one of my people, the situation would be different. But right now, she was sleeping…
The strange thing was, it wasn't any of these things that made me make a decision. It wasn't the thought of my people, or of winning the war when the avians lost their Royal family – even though I knew the war could not be won – or of Xavier, asleep in the next room, or even of my brother that stayed my hand. It was the fact that, watching Danica lie in her bed alone, I wanted to do nothing more than wrap my arms around her and rest with my heartbeat alongside hers.
What was wrong with me? This was Danica Shardae. And yet…
I reached out again, and was about to stroke her cheek once more when I remembered that she had already pulled away from me once before, and that if I woke her up, she was likely to call a guard. I sighed and pulled back.
Then I noticed a scratch on her cheek. I leaned in to examine it, but jumped back as she instinctively recoiled from my cold breath. Amazingly, she was still asleep. She must have been exhausted.
As she moved, I saw another long gash on her arm. What had happened? Had she been in a fight? Surely the avians did not allow the only surviving female descendant of the Tuuli Thea to fight in battle? And she was only fifteen years old! What was she doing fighting?
I shook my head, and carefully started to back out of the room before I did something really stupid. I knew I couldn't kill Danica, and I really hadn't been planning on getting caught.
Before I left, however, I allowed myself one last lingering gaze on the person that I knew I should consider my enemy, though I wasn't sure if I wanted to, or even could.
As I wound my way out of Hawk's Keep and back to where I had left my horse, I caught myself planning to return, and not to cause harm. I didn't know why, and yet, at the same time, I did.
I wanted to see Danica Shardae again, I wanted to see her as something other than the enemy I feared and hated so much. I didn't understand it, as I had hated her so fiercely my entire life, and even more after the so many deaths I had endured.
I understand now, of course.
I think I might have fallen in love that night without realizing it, and I think that was the night when my wishes for peace first started to form in my mind. I no longer wanted vengeance; I wanted the war to stop altogether. I just didn't act on it until after my younger brother, Gregory died, and Danica Shardae proved to me that she had a heart by staying by his side – the side of Gregory Cobriana, her enemy – to ensure that he didn't die alone.
The night after Anjay died… so much happened.
There were only three of us left.
Irene, Gregory and I. We were the only cobras left.
But that didn't matter so much.
Because that night, I saw Danica Shardae, and that night, the end of the war began, even if peace wouldn't occur for another couple of years.
Zane Cobriana
Diente