❛ Look around you. This is where the path of hatred has brought us. ❜
"Hatred?"
Inara is more than a bit taken aback by this statement, and for the first time in what is probably forever in Viktoria's presence, the cold, icy mask that she wears falls and shatters at her feet, emotion licking up her facial structure like flames taking a building, engulfing it beyond hope of recovery.
"Do you think that I hate you?" With this statement, she releases Viktoria's arm and takes a good step back, eyeing the princess over. She is shaking, covered in dirt and spatters of blood, her noble finery ripped, the armor strapped haphazardly over that pretty, pretty dress offering her what protection it could. She looked pathetic.
"I protected you," Inara chose the words carefully, laced with ire and bitterness. "I set my own pain aside to keep you alive. I brought you to marry the man that I loved. I saved your life three times so that you could spend it with the man that I loved. And now you blame this on me? On my hatred?"
She spits the blood that's pooled in her mouth out onto the floor before she turns away. "Find your way back to the castle on your own. I'm done with this."
