"Hold still."
"Tch, you-!"
Lon'qu bristled at her touch - a woman's touch - as she persisted against his naked, weary body. His ears were beset by the constant, relentless howls of the sandstorm that had consumed this distant stretch of the Plegian desert. Their shelter - fleeting and bereft of comforts, at least had the means for his battle-riddled body to be attended to…regardless of his own desire. "Will you be at peace for just one moment? I swear, we're almost done," the valkyrie promised him while she drew a wet cloth over his bare back.
And bare he was -stripped down to a mere cloth over his groin and wrapped in gauze and bandages while she tended to his wounds with not but a robe on her back. He said nothing about this mollifying situation while she cleaned him of stains. Stains of battle that had left him weary and wrapped in the harsh sands of Plegia that threatened to fester in his new wounds. The harsh sting on his open cuts and fresh bruises made his eyes twitch and his lips curl, but he made no sound of weakness. Not before a woman who had once opposed his employer in a world apart.
Pheros - a woman of many shattered faiths. Lost was the well-kept regalia of a horse-bound valkyrie and proud general. Absent was a righteous, noble heart that beat and burned in service of a grand and glorious future. Gone were the eyes that followed invisible spirits or the mightiest of men. Her defeat, and the subsequent destruction of the Conqueror's dream, left her adrift and forlorn. She was nothing now - a woman of coarse robes who drifted without purpose through the bloodstained deserts.
There was no more shelter for here in the realm of mortals. The temples of the Earth Mother and the Divine Dragon no longer welcomed her. The fortresses of her homeland were also sealed after Valm had put an order of death to any leader that once wore the colors of Walhart. As the former general of the bulwark Fort Steiger, that would surely have earned her public execution. And so, she'd fled her home for these miserable wastes, simply to await her long-coveted demise.
And she'd've found it…if not for him.
From her shameful hideaway, she'd emerged and found the decayed remnants of Risen like a road of death. a trail of smoke and corpses that led her to him, surrounded by the remains of his would-be executioners. their task would've succeeded, if not for her as she pulled him into shelter just before the storm swallowed the dunes around them.
"...You are of Chon'sin, are you not?"
Pheros' words elicited no reactions from the swordsman, but she had no need to hear them for her answer. Whether his thoughts were on the fierce battle amongst the sands that had divided him from his fellow Shepherds, or the horrific sandstorm that piled outside their shelter, she couldn't say. Nor could she even answer why she saw the need to tend to his body with the hands once softened and clasped in prayer. Perhaps it was past that called to her, as a woman who once believed peace came from words, not weapons.
"Tell me - why do you still put your sword in the hands of Ylisse? What means do they shackle you?" she asked him with eyes narrowed.
"...I am not shackled," Lon'qu finally answered. His tone was even, his words calm. And yet to the most keen and adept, there could be found just the smallest sense of ire. The most fleeting of passion that could compel steel through flesh in the blink of an eye. A part of her withered at such a fact…and the other part persisted.
"Yet you follow him - why?" she asked as she dipped the rag fresh and began to work anew. Her own body shifted towards him while she ran down his rigid arm to clean the blood and sand that had accumulated on his skin. "Is it because he has strength?" she pondered aloud.
"He is strong - but that does not guide me," Lon'qu answered as he clenched his hand into a fist. His breath remained composed, though only just. Pheros saw suit to press further and further on.
"Then what?"
"Be silent," he demanded before her wet cloth reached his wrist. "Hmph."
"Hmm?"
Pheros paused as she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Her head shifted around his body to the rather noticeable tent between his legs. She blinked before realization made her eyes narrow. "Swordsman…what is the meaning of this?" she demanded to know.
In truth, his answer wasn't necessary. She was no fool, truly. It was more than clear that there was nothing to be found in this tense air, least of all any sense of emotion or passion. What she saw - what he bore - was merely a reaction not born of will, but of primal instinct. The soft caress of the fair flesh on his steel-toned body that coaxed the weapon of men from its place of repose.
"…Tch" he grumbled and motioned to remove himself from her presence. Her hand was quicker than he as she gripped his thigh and pressed lightly down to keep him seated. "Release me," he demanded but made no move to strike her.
"Ah…I see," Pheros mused. In her past lives as a woman of faith or a lady of war, she was far from naive about how others perceived her. Blessed, or cursed, as she was with great beauty that rarely suited a holy habit or a war rider's stirrups. Never once had she humored such advances - first of piety, and then of her deep desire for the once-mighty Conqueror. And yet, stripped of anything and everything she could make of herself…what else did she have to give?
"I can address this…if you are willing?" she offered him without a hint of deceit or desire. Whatever shame or outrage she could've felt was dulled and weathered in the sands of Plegia. Or the oceans that split this land and her home. Perhaps she'd left it in the remains of Fort Steiger, alongside the corpses of her garrison and the carcass of her horse. Wherever it had been lost, she didn't question or mourn its passing.
Lon'qu said nothing to her at first. The gap of silence was filled by the wailing moan of the sandstorm outside. Her hand remained on his leg- near his crotch, as she awaited his response with an impassive stare. "..Just make it quick," he finally told her.
She did just that as she used her hand to cleanse him of this wicked sin. Whether it be by her soft hand or his weary body, she coaxed the seed of life from the killer's loins and let it stain the cloth over his body. Her fingers were mostly spared, save a single rope of seed that stretched between her knuckle and digit. A mess that was quickly absconded of before she discarded his cloth completely.
Lon'qu rose up - still bare, and walked towards the far end of the room. With his back to the wall, he crouched down. With eyes narrowed, he followed her aimless measures to clean her station.
There was nothing more to be said - in the morning when the storm died down he would leave, and she would remain here. Adrift in the desert until her legs could carry her no more. It was unlikely they would cross paths again, and far less likely he would divulge her existence to the other Shepherds. She'd be forgotten - as she should be.
…Right?
Surely this was no sign, was it? This couldn't be a call from the realms beyond to save her weary soul, surely. The rumors of the Prince's mercy seemed to echo through these miserable sands. Mercy offered to those that had turned axes against him, no less, as he strove to follow his departed sister's example.
Just as Pheros had once done.
Could she put the remains of her life into the hands of those that she'd forsaken - the claws of unseen dragons whose perceived love echoed for centuries? Could she find the strength to raise her chin high and march under the banner that had conquered the Conqueror? Could she find something to give purpose to a life that had already lingered past where it should've been cut short?
Could she…or should she?
