Untitled by tumblr user scrubsanddrugs
Prompt 1: ‘But you didn’t listen’
“Why do you always rush towards battle?”
Silence met her demand and Ohne pressed her lips together in a thin line. “Oh, am I supposed to get the silent treatment now?” She barked out with a short laugh.
The only response was the sizzle and pop of the dwindling fire in the hearth.
The restless quiet pressed down onto her, stifling the breath out of her lungs. No matter how many times she swallowed, her mouth still felt like sandpaper. She dug her fingernails into her sweaty palms before shutting the door behind her.
At once, the darkness of the room seemed to swell. The feeble firelight did little to abate the encroaching darkness. If she strained her eyes, she could make out the vague outlines of the sparse furnishings. A burnished chest at the foot of the bed. A nightstand listing against the stone wall, topped by a single vase with a slender white flower.
But the faint reflection of firelight on steel pulled her eyes towards the bed across the room. The dim orange light danced over the patterns carved into Kalorin’s armor. Shadows wavered and coiled in the etchings, making ravens and carrion to Ohne’s eyes.
She could feel Kalorin frown at her through the shadows, as if berating her hesitation. White-hot fury gripped her stomach, yanked, and Ohne surged forward with a snarl. “This is ridiculous. You, are ridiculous. I am angry at you!” Ohne spat, her stomps puncturing every syllable as she stormed towards the bed.
She paused, half-expecting to hear a long-suffering sigh or a derisive snort. Anything to break the silence crushing down on her ears.
But Kalorin, curse her, remained silent.
A low, relentless burning had settled in the back of her throat and it was getting harder and harder to ignore it. Ohne snarled a tangle of guttural curses, her voice grating treacherously at its edges.
“You promised me, Kalorin!” She exclaimed, as she pulled up short at the foot of the bed. “You made a promise! I asked for one simple thing, one thing only! And somehow you managed a spectacular failure, you reckless, inconsiderate-!“
With an incoherent howl of rage, Ohne tore away from the foot of the bed, dark eyes burning with tears. Clenching her hands into tight fists, she resumed wearing a track into the rug.
“I asked one simple thing of you, but you didn’t listen!” She growled through her teeth, “I wanted you to stay, I wanted you to be safe. Why couldn’t you see that, you fool?”
Only the fire’s dying whispers answered. All at once, the anger rushed out of Ohne, leaving her hollow and remorseful.
Once upon a time, her temper would have startled Kalorin. Once upon a time, Kalorin would have smiled and patiently waited for Ohne to finish venting.
The silence was implacable as she sank down onto the side of the bed, looking over Kalorin in the dim light.
It was almost cruel, how peaceful Kalorin looked lying in the bed. At first glance, one could easily mistake the warrior’s serene expression for sleep.
If only fate had been kinder.
A broken sob stuttered past Ohne’s lips. She buried her face in to her hands in defeat as she desperately wished the silence was only a cruel joke.
“You promised you’d come back.” Ohne moaned in anguish as slumped against Kalorin’s cold, ornate burial armor. “You promised.”
But Kalorin remained lifeless and Ohne remained alone. Only embers bore witness to her keening softly over the body of her past, her present, and her future.
@scrubsanddrugs
