Title: Miria's Illusion.

Rating: PG-13 (slightly safe, save for some implied sexuality)

Pairing: Rigardo/Miria

Summary: He took her into their ranks, not because it was a sane idea, nor was it ideal, but the armies to the west and the south are growing and she was tolerably appealing as an awakened being.

Warning: slight Non-con.

Rigardo contemplates the future. One that's not riddled with incompetent soldiers such as his own followers—those armies of awakened beings who aren't worth their salt—but he's generous, he thinks.

After all this is his army. Not Easley's. He can't stand how he's relegated to the 2nd rank, among them. Not that he minds, bowing before the Silver King, in his human form. He doesn't mind when he's thinking about what lies ahead.

He even takes the time to relax under the winter storm. Bitingly cold to a human's flesh, but he only feels the cool touch that breathes through his fur. He's transformed back to his weaker form. And even in this transformation, he's formidable.

There's the matter of one woman who he has kept as one of them. Awakened Miria, the former captain of the Organization, and while he would balk at such a messy affair that a being so beneath him would join their ranks, he has not been easy about her presence.

Their house, the great big house that storms up the hill, reaching the wintry white sky keeps them warm, warmer than the cave that Easley keeps with Priscilla. There's that other matter with a boy, the name of Raki, small boy of sixteen? Or fifteen, he does not know. He does not care, but it's another matter in which he cannot grasp, except that whatever Priscilla wants, she gets. Easley's little awakening whore.

And there's Miria, who has the yoki power, awakened partly there, her eyes yellow with slits and blond fire, and her phantom powers, would prove great in their army against the south and the west.

He dips his hand into the cold flesh of the dead, sitting like a frosty meal in a bowl, before him on the table. He leans forward and takes the pinkish flesh between his fingers and doesn't chew this time when it enters his mouth. The flesh is good, fresh and inviting…and it leaves him feeling more powerful each time.

He hears the door to his connecting room. It is her. She isn't a claymore awakened that would be reduced to tears, not this one. Though, not many claymores are like that. He ignores the noise, for a moment to enjoy his fare. The rest is cold. There's no need for heaters or fires in this place. The storm rages like a thousand bonfires blue and left dead like trampling horses on solid snow. He takes off his jacket, settles it on the back of his chair when he's done with his meal. He even takes a little time to drink the blood that's been left in the goblet. Everything's as fine as any beast of his rank could ever want. Save for the woman in his room. She's not even a proper woman. Even her flesh isn't edible.

The noise has started to slow when he's reached the door to her room. He doesn't knock as he enters. She's a sight, sitting there, bloody, dried now, with her cuts regenerating unhurriedly. She has taken quite a beating earlier. Miria's phantom skills would prove redoubtable and functional. And of all the awakened beings, he's left to oversee her condition and her loyalties. One betrayal and her body would fall like the rest. It's a shame, he thinks.

It's a shame that so many claymores are willing to die like this. Following the Organization like mechanical dolls, lifeless within with varying powers. She just looks at him with a defiant look. Her hair is plastered over her oval face, and her human lips part.

Her hands are tied behind her back, her legs roped viciously around her thighs and ankles. It's a shame really, weakening her like this, when she so obviously wants to rake her fingers over his skin. Part of her wants to rebel and he knows, there's a generous amount that wants to please, obey and this turn of events made him realize it's only because of her revenge.

"I trust you're enjoying yourself?" It was meant to be in jest, as his eyes never betrayed anything but cynicism, and a full of amount of brutal honesty.

"You pompous dog." She spits out between her clenched teeth, "what makes you and your Easley would believe I would join you? Cowards. Tying me up like this."

"Humpf," he maladroitly makes a disgusted noise, and his lightning speed, like Miria's own movements brought him closer to his quarry, "Easley tells me I need a whore like he has one," his fingernail softly rakes her cheek, cutting deep enough to cause a cut, "if he has one, I should have one. But he's not fair is he? He's got a higher ranked awakening whore and I? What should I get but one that is tolerably fair in battle, high ranking no doubt, but you're not insane enough are you?"

"You mean out of my head like Priscilla? Priscilla's lost it, Rigardo, she no longers knows her own mind, and that's why she's higher ranked."

"Those who are too intelligent usually die young, don't they?" He growls low against her porcelain-fine cheek, and he knows she hates this kind of teasing. Rigardo finds it amusing enough to squeeze her waist with his elegant fingers nearly transforming like his beast-were form, the apex of her sex dead to the world.

"Claymore's are a strange breed," he muses aloud, the back of his hand caressing against her cheek, "soft like a human's skin, but inside—" he digs his other hand deeper into her waist, puncturing her enough so that it causes a wound and the blood to flow and seep through her claymore armour. She cries softly, whimpering with pain. He can see it in her eyes, the anger and hate, the disgusted way she swings her fiery eyes towards him.

"Do you find it pleasing that you tie me up here, so you can abuse me to your heart's content?" Miria narrows her eyes, "Go ahead, kill me."

"Why would I want to do that? I would have done so much sooner, but there's time to see your worth." He takes his finger now drenched in her blood and smears it softly against her cheek, "inside you, your flesh smells of fresh human, that part of you that you hadn't given up, and yet, not delicious enough to taste because of the other taint."

"My powers…" She gasps as he takes a dip into her neck, his teeth sinking slow against the jugular, but he does not bite as a blood sucker would do—he grazes his fangs along the skin just so until she's left breathing hard, her chest heaves languid and deep.

When he finishes his task, he leans back to look at her, and he can see the mirror in her eyes, reverting back to her human eyes of pale blue—he can see himself clearly in her eyes—his human form. The straight short dark hair, long sharp bangs, the darkened eyes, straight nose, the surprisingly gentle face, and lastly—the impassive expression he keeps.

"I cannot take you like this, Miria." He tells her sharply, while smoothing his partially transformed fingers down her waist, leaving the blood to dry.

"No." she shakes her head, "No, I don't…" she refuses, but her body responds when he rakes his fingers now furred and sharp with long nails along her armoured body. Soon, she will be aroused, awakened like a moth to a flame.

She knows it's the only way he can take her. Not in human form. Her body is unappealing when she's nude like this, with rivulets of scars and burned marks too fleshy to look upon, but when she's awakened—she's magnificent. He cannot take her with his human form in the same manner. His sex becomes hard without pleasure, and the only pleasure he takes can only be in form of a beast.

And he knows it's the only way his appetites can be appeased fully when he's effusively formed in his lion-like manifestation.

"Miria…" He growls, like a rumbling thunder deep within his chest.

"Rigardo, no..no.."

But she's too weak at this state and the contest of wills begins even in this late of the day.

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