Written for the prompt fear
She dreamt of hands. Most often, ominous black-sheathed ones that had warned her of pain as they pointed down at her defiance. And she had felt the promise of that pain fulfilled by those very hands. And again, when that leathered glove crackled with triumphant power in her ear as it had gripped her shoulder, so that she could do nothing to stop the unleashing of a new torrent of pain, which would be brief for millions but unending for her.
Dreams of those dark hands, she understood. Part of her unalterable past, and she worked night and day and every hour in between to ensure that no further pain, to her or anyone else, was wrought by those sinister hands.
Dreams of other hands, she did not understand. Severed, disembodied hands. Hands with fingers extending, grasping, reaching, but stilled in their desperate pose. Hands unable to serve neither normal nor noble purposes.
Her fear grew, the closer they came to a city tucked into the clouds.
He would leave her after that, the one who had learned to comfort her on nights when she dreamt of hands. Using his own flesh and blood hands to hold her shivering body, to wipe away her tears, to drive the monsters back into the dark and make promises of safety he likely could not keep.
She dreamt of those hands too, once. Caressing the soft swell of her belly with a possessive pride.
This dream of his hands, she buried deep. Far from sight of the greedy Fates that seemed unrelenting in their quest to seize all that she determined to love.