Zareen sat quietly on the cushions in the sitting area of the Den, soaking up the sunlight that streamed through the wall of windows. She was pale, where the patchwork of healing bruises and new scars didn't mar her skin, and she was weak, needing to pause to rest in the short walk between the infirmary and the front room. But she was moving. She was walking. She was healing.
Her body was, at least.
Gold eyes rested heavily on a jade amulet and a gold wedding band held in her hands. The healers had removed both while seeing to the worst of her injuries, setting them aside along with her other jewelry. Now that they were back in her hands, she found herself gazing at them as if trying to find some secret they held. She could sense C'arha's aether in the jade, at least enough to tell she was alive and not in live-altering distress. Zareen was too afraid to reach out for more, to call to her. The lack of Arden's aether in the amulet was an emptiness she could feel- it echoed the place in her heart where his love had been.
So many broken promises. She'd made herself an oathbreaker for him, a creature lower than a beast. Lower than a Sin Eater. The Jaguar would have beaten her, taken her soulstone, and cast her out for that crime. But she'd done it, for him. To save him. To keep his smile and his touch and his love in her life and the lives of her cubs.
How many hearts had she broken, for him?
How many people had she failed as a woman, a sister, a friend, a lover, and a leader, for him?
What had she made of herself, for him?
Her eyes moved to the wedding band and she lifted it up to the light. There was blood on it and her thumb brushed the rusty crust away so the gold gleamed. She'd always meant every word she'd said to him. Always meant every word she'd said to anyone until the night she'd chosen to lie to her family.
All those vows. All those promises. All those whispered exortations of love and loyalty.
And all she was left with were baubles and scars and a broken heart.
Her hand shook with weakness and she dropped it back into her lap. Tears welled up in her eyes and slowly trailed down her cheeks and she bowed until her head rested on the cushions and sobbed into the soft fabric. Wrapping her arms around the pillow, she rocked back and forth, and sobbed, and screamed into the fabric until her throat was raw with it and it wasn't enough, it wasn't nearly enough. Her legs twitched with the urge to run but she was too weak to obey, too shaky to go far, and where would she go? Where could she run to get away from this?
When her sobs finally stilled and her head ached with the sound of her own screams, the miqo'te uncurled herself from around the pillow and picked up the amulet and the ring from where they had fallen. Gazing at the two, she slowly placed the amulet back around her neck. The ring she held as she rose on shaking legs and made her way back to her bed in the infirmary, where she set it back on the table with the rest of her finery, to decide it's fate another day.
Zareen sat in front of her vanity, braiding her hair and humming softly to herself. The quiet sound of Arden singing the twins to sleep was sweetness in her ears and she smiled with a soft and genuine joy, glancing into the nursery to catch his eye before rising and heading to the stairs.
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She’d gone downstairs, he’d watched her go, the way her hips moved under the fabric of her long skirt. He’d caught her look, the way her eyes shone soft gold as she smiled at him. That smile that lit her up from the inside. He’d smiled back, unable to stop himself. He kissed his daughters goodnight and laid them in their cradle, watching them for a long time before stepping out of the nursery and over to his workstation. Resting his hands on the desk heavily, he bowed his head and his eye moved to his wedding band; thumb running over it, turning it slowly on his hand so it caught the light and shone gold as her eyes.
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Zareen was in the kitchen, crouched down and looking through the cold-box, considering a snack. The sound of Arden coming down the stairs made her ears twitch and she gave a bright and sweet smile as she turned to ask him if he’d like a drink- then she saw the way he was looking at her and her heart became a stone in her breast, her smile and the brightness behind it wiped away.
One cold, empty, ice blue eye fixed on her, predatory, emotionless. The miqo’te had only that brief warning, that one look, before he closed the distance between them, the Void in his aether slamming into her like a physical force. She gagged and he took advantage of that split-second to flip the table and lunge for her, hands extended for her throat, moving far too fast for a man of his size. A lifetime of training and the instincts of all her ancestors made her drop to the floor, avoiding his grasp by an ilm. She rolled and he lashed out in a kick that barely glanced across her ribs. Fetching up against the side of the cabinet, Zareen pulled herself into a crouch, tail lashing as she tried to keep the snarl from her voice, tried to keep her voice steady as she reached a hand out to him in a calming gesture. “Ahden, come back. Ahden, don’t...don’t do this!”
She was forced to dart to the side as one of the chairs crashed into the place she was crouched, breaking the cabinet and shattering the glass above it. Arden stalked her and she retreated, giving ilm by ilm as they danced around the overturned table in the small space. As soon as he was cornered against the stove, she leapt forward and flipped the table back towards him, fouling his steps with the broken wooden legs. It bought her just enough time to vault over the railing of the stairs and leap up to the landing, then to the second floor, her fingers fumbling for the linkpearl at her ear.
“Someone- please! The cubs- get them out--”
His frustrated roar goaded her to move faster and she came to the door of the nursery at the same moment that he rounded the first landing and came flying up the stairs at her. No time for subtlety, Zareen sliced open her hand with a claw and slammed her palm flat against the door post of the nursery just as he hit her in a shoulder tackle, all nearly 7 fulms of Highlander slamming into her side. Wards shimmered into place around the nursery just before the pair hit the wall of the house hard enough to crack one of the studs and break Zareen’s ribs. Arden drew back his fist to continue the assault only to be met with a burst of lightning that threw him bodily across the room, back slamming into his desk and smashing it apart, shattering the security monitor.
Zareen stood propped against the broken wall, one arm cradling her shattered ribs.
“Ahden...please...” Her voice was very soft, hurt singing through it and fear making it shake. She looked up at him with tears in her eyes and shook her head, pleading. “Don’t make me do this. Not again. You promised...you promised everehthing would be okay.”
The big Highlander pushed away from his desk and threw a hand out at her, bolts of void energy slamming into her, one after another, driving her into the tatami mat.
There was silence for a moment, an eerie stillness.
What rose from the floor was barely a miqo’te anymore. Fire and storm and darkness, the Jaguar stood and lifted her head. Blood smeared over her chin as she wiped it away from a split lip with long-clawed fingertips, gold eyes blazing and inhumanly crazed. Her enemy sent a wave of Void energy at her as she stalked towards him. She staggered, a single step, and the look in her eyes was full of mad sorrow, then she threw herself at him with claws already in motion and aiming for his throat. He blocked her, arm sliced to the bone, then drove his fist into her jaw. They traded blows, his fists thudding into her broken ribs, her kidneys, her core, her claws slashing across his chest, his belly, his arms, his face. The false eye he wore was torn away, landing and rolling across the room. He was fast but she was just a little bit faster and when he swung a hard left hook she snapped out and grabbed his wrist then threw herself backwards, pulling him forwards as she fell until she kicked out with both feet and drove them into his hip, launching him back over her head and down the stairs. There was the harsh crack as bones broke then a sickening series of crunches as he hit the landing and kept falling. He screamed, rage and pain in the sound, and the Jaguar let out a roar in reply, twisting herself around and leaping forward, careening off the broken wall to throw herself in a dive at his chest as he started to stand.
She hit him hard enough to send them both to the floor but his hand snapped out and grabbed her by the back of her neck, flinging her away from him as they fell. She hit the post of the small brazier in the center of the room and cried out as it broke, the wood gouging her side deeply with splinters before she hit the couch. Her claws sank into the soft cushions, blood soaking her thigh and the fabric beneath her, then splattering the wall as she gathered herself up and launched herself at her enemy again, coming in low with her shoulder and hitting the side of his knee so it buckled before he roared and slammed both fists down on her back in a hammer blow. She hit the tile so hard she nearly bounced, wind painfully knocked out of her and something in her upper back screaming. Pushing aside the pain, the Jaguar twisted out of the way just in time to avoid having her chest caved in with a stomp, the failed blow making the Highlander wobble on his feet a little as it shot pain through his injured knee.
Taking advantage, she spun on the blood-slicked tile and drove both feet up into his belly, only to have him grab her by the ankles and throw her bodily to the side and directly through the wall of windows above the couches. Glass exploded outwards and showered the lawn and the Jaguar hit the cross-beam between the windows, something in her shoulder letting out a stomach-turning crunch and pain searing through her, making her gasp for air, wide- and wild-eyed. She lifted her head and for the briefest moment, they caught each other's gaze, the Jaguar and the man, before a bolt of unformed lightning and fire and darkness slammed into Arden and sent him flying backwards through the air until he was forcibly and suddenly halted by hitting the wall just above the stairs. He slid down slowly, legs not quite catching him, landing on his hands and knees. His blood pooled on the tile, running down his arms, his chest, his face. He tossed his head to keep it out of his good eye and looked up to watch her.
The Jaguar pulled herself out of the windows and back into the house, clawing forward on her hands and knees. Her right arm dragged useless at her side, collarbone shining very, very white as it jutted through her dark and bloody skin, unheeded in this moment. She stumbled over the torn cushions of the couch, through the coals of the brazier, feet sliced open and crunching on broken glass as she forced herself to stand and stalked towards the kneeling man, stopping a few fulms away and out of reach. Arden pushed himself up onto one knee and they regarded each other across the destruction of their home, the scattered coals of the brazier beginning to ignite the stuffing of the couch.
He threw his hand up, streaks of black flowing through his veins, and shards of the void were flung towards her, slicing her open in a dozen places. Her hand lifted at the same moment, tendrils of dark aether lashing at him, tearing at his mind with every fear he’d ever known. The twin assaults could not continue- Arden’s hands went to his head as he screamed, the Jaguar went down to one knee as she bled, mirroring the man, and again they stared at each other and an eternity stretched silent between them. A little more than a year. A thousand lifetimes, remembered and forgotten. Love and loss and love. Broken promises. Shared laughter. Sweetness and joy. Pain and blood.
A heart beat.
The Jaguar moved before Arden realized it, instinct making him wrap his arms around her as she came at him. She hit him hard enough to send both of them sliding down the stairs together. They hit the upper landing with her lying atop him, cradled against his chest with her head bowed.
The collar around his throat glowed red, pulsing rapidly in time with the bracelet around her wrist. Wild gold eyes lifted, filled with an indescribable sorrow, then lowered to the three ilms of broken glass that her sliced fingers were still wrapped around, the rest of the long shard driven through his heart. Blue gaze met gold and the rapid red pulse slowed.
“Why?”
And slowed.
“I love you.”
And
“I’m sorry”
Slowed
“I love you.”
The solid red glow held steady and Zareen bowed her head, sluggishly bleeding out, whispering in her lover’s ear the words to absolve him, pressing her lips to his to grant him last rites, drinking in his final breath. Fire crackled above her, the flames still small but spreading, consuming the wood and fabric of the main floor slowly and steadily, and all she had the strength to do was to pray, pleading with the Lady that her family would save her cubs.
((Tagging: @eyespywithmyoneeyegtfo ))
