Writer's Note: This fic takes place shortly before the Prison Planet Story arc, and as such, it containsspoilers.
There was something primal about her, something that always kept him on edge. It was thrilling and exciting, something that he knew was either innate or something that took years for her to prefect, but it was there.
The way her strange eyes flared with lust or anger, the way her fingers dug into his skin like a metallic vise, the way she screamed out her rage and took her violence out on walls and random objects that were guiltless...all of these were things he could overlook. After all, it wasn't easy living with criminals, especially if you weren't one. It wasn't easy having to watch your back at all times. It wasn't easy waking up every morning and wondering if you were going to be killed for a foolish reason.
So of course she had to have an outlet. Of course she was bound to come loose somehow. He was the same way with sparring. When it came to sparring with the men and women, he showed no mercy - he never let anyone win, nor did he ever hold back. That was his way. It was always his way.
He didn't love her - that much was obvious. But there was a kind of affection there, one borne of a kind of kinship forged by circumstance. It wasn't love, but it was still powerful.
But even he had his limits. And when he caught her holding a gun up to one of their men, her eyes raging and her mouth spouting out filthy curses, something inside of him broke. She was going to kill this man, she said, because he wouldn't go into a dangerous section of the planetoid and fetch her something. So it was, apparently, enough to die for.
But it wasn't. He knew that. But she didn't. To her, lives were nothing more than wisps of smoke to be waved away from her face if they got into her eyes. And he was, above all things, an emperor first, and his loyalty was to his people.
And it was that day that he took his most loyal and left their once-shared bunker for good.
Her wrath was easier to face than her convoluted affection.