Damn her, why did she beg so? Hand outstretched, a suppliant longing for holy palmer's kiss; eyes tearful and pleading, pleading for his remaining by her side; voice wavering in the darkness of night and a child's fear of being left alone... O, but she moved him past thought! She would fain have him stay, with no thought, none at all, of the danger, the grief she would wreak upon herself if she witnessed the breakdown he now felt was inevitable...
"...Won't you, Iago?" Her words were fraught with her own pain at what, perhaps, she perceived to be his abandonment of her...it was as he had thought before. Childish fear: of the dark, of isolation, of solitude. Of the monsters within the soul that haunted one at night, twisting slight misgivings into all-consuming terrors that warped the mind about itself in vain efforts to excise them... Such terrors...they were not meant to mar Emilia's features as they now did. Let them all come upon him; he could at least ease her burden slightly before...
"Ay," he whispered, all the world's promise in a single breath. "I know not when I will return, but know that I will..." Perhaps he would not return whole, but that now was of no import.
Turning away from her before her pleas could bid him do what he could not bear to do, Iago walked quickly through the dimly lit hall, his speed making him clumsier than was his wont, as he made for a small, unknown side door with all haste. No one molested him as he moved, and the lack of disruption gave his thoughts leave to start their torment of him anew, clamoring to be heard and heeded once more, crushing him under the weight of their demands...
Outside, the night air was cool and still, and the full moon, hanging like a perfect jewel in the black Cypriot sky, was becoming covered with shreds of insidious clouds, blowing from the west. An ill omen, that: night's beauty marred by evil's obscurity...it boded well for no one.