Filth
Mithrigil Galtirglin
-
Every time he woke, he wondered where the impetus had arisen. Where he'd come to believe that the Princess would behave the way she did, how the skin of her fingertips would feel, the resonance of halting gasps against his ear. Where the pattern had transpired, of her lips on his skin, her legs about his hips, the vague hiss of a tearing membrane inside her as she lowered herself onto him, and why then, always then, the vision shattered. And sweating, he lay there, eyes closed, chest heaving but his breath stifled, cursing himself and his need and irreverence and begging for answers, why, wherefore.
And the pieces assembled, there before dawn, night after night. Her hands, streaked with new yellow calluses at the joints, had once found their way to his neck, and his own desires had moved them elsewhere, like markers on a field. Her whimpers he'd heard in battle, the strain of too many enemies, the warnings he would heed in a heartbeat, and here in his own mind he caused them. Her lips were pure folly, contrivance alone, or so he told himself—and then he realized, wiping cold sweat from his chin, that they were like his.
Each time, he dismissed the dreams as his own creation, that this illusion was catering to his own illicit, sick, irreverent mind. That she only climbed atop him, controlled this, because he desired her to. That she would never desire such of her own accord. That she was whole again until he took her.
-
The slick ichor that the Esper had left them all caked in dripped warmly to the floor, thinner and more recalcitrant than blood. The floor of the chamber was streaked with it, and Vossler's greaves scraped against the wet stone as he rushed toward Ashe, who held the flaming cryst in her hands.
Without a word, he pried a cloth from the dry in one of his pouches, and reached for her hands. They had all seen and felt what the fire of that Gigas would do to the oil it left behind, and perhaps the Princess did not see that the stone she held would burn her.
The handkerchief soaked through almost before he pressed it to her skin, and he could feel her boiling pulse through the canvas. He cursed his mind for the filth that had coalesced in it, and wondered if he looked the part, now, vainly contriving to keep his liege pure when he himself was so inextricably stained.
-
She asked who he was to talk of trust, and he answered. It was the last time she addressed him, and he her. She walked off in chains and did not look back, save to draw a sword to counter his.
Basch took over their battle soon enough, but the Princess was faster and full of wrath. She charged him and bore her sword down upon him and he parried, and for the first time ever looked her straight in the eyes.
His parry faltered, and her sword scraped down his, and he'd heard the sound somewhere before. It sent a shudder through him and stayed his hand.
-
Blood slithered down the stumps on his left hand and burned in the Mist, and finally they ached. The smell was familiar to him, perhaps too, and lapped against his sinuses, mocking in its reassurance. All over, it hissed, all over.
An image, a memory of a dream, contrivance.
And who was he to talk of trust, indeed, if in the end he did not trust himself?