It was a game that could invite disaster. Anri imagined the pair of them split open like pomegranates, jewelled viscera picked over by crabs the size of boulders. There was almost something romantic in it. Blood mixed with blood, bodies encased in the same silt, the same mud, their bones muddled together for an eternity. Only, it would not be an eternity. Their ilk was not permitted to rest – not while they still had purpose written in their heart-roots.
Banishing macabre thoughts, Anri rose from her stony perch and waded into the water. It climbed her legs to kiss her milky thighs, running parallel with the tired hem of her undershirt. She savoured the small, sweet feeling of triumph that she had tempted Korvyn into existing deliciously, dangerously. Did they not deserve it, after aeons of sleepwalking through misery and hardship?
A flash of silver in the water drew her gaze away from her companion as he laid his swords with her own, their weapons a steely set of triplets resting at the shoreline. Anri watched the jittering movements of a minnow before it vanished beneath a cluster of lily pads. Another fleeting glimpse of the life that prevailed even now, on the cusp of darkness.
They prevailed, she and noble Korvyn. Muggy air filled the bellows of their lungs, the peaty mulch of the flooded forest – with feathery fronds of aquatic moss – formed a fine carpet beneath bare feet. A rare moment that approached peace, where they did not weep, and did not bleed. Anri kept her back to the knight as he readied himself to join her, offering him some modicum of privacy.
“Have you need of assistance?”