#qagi

[quills-and-golden-ink]

“Why should I trust you?”

“Such an overly worn question.” He rolled his eyes. “What you should be asking is if you can actually afford to spurn my assistance — and I’m fairly sure the answer is no, my paranoid little darling.”

[quills-and-golden-ink]

"I was curious, you see?" The vampire - if that's what it was - grinned, and the hunter watched its canines lengthen into two long points. "Your scent... it is like nothing I have ever smelled before."

The hunter's blood went cold. The knife in their hands trembled ever so slightly. "So you followed me here? You're an unbelievable creep, you know that?"

Emerald eyes flashed red. The vampire's lips turned into a frown. "There's no need to be rude, little hunter. I'm not looking for a taste."

The hunter nearly threw up a little. "Stay away from me."

"And what if I don't want to?"

Before they could blink, the vampire's hands were on their shoulder.

[quills-and-golden-ink]

“What, you don’t want my help?”

By the corpse of the dragon, the knight, blood dripping from her rosy cheeks, answered with a glare. “And sell you my soul? No thanks.”

“You’ll never find the last stone on your own.” The witch shrugged her shoulders. She circled the fallen warrior, staying just out of reach of the shaking sword pointed at her heart, wary of the knight’s strength even on the brink of death as she was. “We can make a deal.”

“As I said,” the knight hissed, “I’d rather die.”

She staggered to her feet and lunged for the witch. Her eyes swayed; her sword struck only smoke.

A cool hand wrapped around the back of her neck.

“I would beg you to reconsider,” murmured a voice like honey and silk. The knight held back a shudder, reminding herself that witches were agents of the dark lord. No one walked away from their pacts alive - they couldn’t be trusted.

“No.”

“What if I told you,” the witch’s grip tightened. Warmth flooded through the knight - with a gasp, she realized the lashes across her body were healing. “That I didn’t want your soul?”

“What, then.”

Cool fingers found her cheek. She felt the witch’s body, pressing firmly against her back.

“Immortality is lonely,” she whispered, her breath ghosting over the warrior’s ear. “All I want is one night of your time.”

[quills-and-golden-ink]

"I bought your loyalty."

"No, you didn't." The champion stood shakily to her feet, quivering with the effort. As the adrenaline faded from her system, so too did her strength, and she was left leaning on her quarterstaff to stand upright. She hated that. She hated the fact that she had to rely on something just to stand tall and face her most hated enemy eye to eye. In her dreams, it had always been on her own two feet, with her sword to the woman's throat and fear in those loathsome blue eyes.

But the woman - her lady, her queen, her collar - stared cooly at the champion from her bed. She spared her fallen guards no more than a cursory look, even the one who had been thrown clean through the wall and folded his spine in half at the foot of her vanity. The champion thought, for a wild moment, that she might use him as a footstool the next time she applied her powders or combed her hair. She certainly wouldn't put it past her.

"I see," said the mouth of the woman she wanted to kill. "You're going to tell me that I bought your sword alone."

"You bought my sword," affirmed the champion, "and the fingers and the palms and the arms that bear it. You own the breath in my lungs that fuel my strikes, and the legs I stand on when I cut your enemies to the ground. Those all belong to you."

"But not your loyalty." The woman had the audacity to look bored.

"A weapon has no loyalties."

"Are you going to kill me now?"

"Yes."

She smiled. "I don't think so."

And the champion foolishly asked, "Why not?"

"Because, my dear." Her queen slid her legs out from under her covers. The eyes she slid onto her champion were dark and amused and wholly devoid of fear. The champion was frozen as she murmured, with all the abhorrent intimacy of a lover, "I own your heart too."

[quills-and-golden-ink]

"Why do you look at me like that?"

"Like what?"

The villain's eyes blurred with tears. "Like I'm someone worth killing."

[quills-and-golden-ink]

"Kill me then."

"So eager to die?"

"Yes." Any fight left had gone. There was nothing but empty hollowness remaining. "Because you were the only thing I lived for."

[quills-and-golden-ink]

"Don't do it. Please."

"Come on. You know you want to," whispered the second voice. "You want to feel my blood running down your hands. I can see it. So come on - don't listen to him. Do it."

There were three people on the field. The woman holding a knife over a girl smiling an unnaturally wide smile, and the man ten steps away begging everyone to just stop.

"She's my daughter," he begged.

"And I want you to watch me die," the girl snapped back.

[quills-and-golden-ink]

"Darling, I need you to look at me."

"I can't."

"You can."

"No, I can't." She took a deep breath, willing herself to stop shaking. It didn't work.

Their partner stood watching with a careful eye. "He took your sight."

"No."

"Then why?"

She wished she could answer, but the words tied knots around her tongue. She couldn't explain that to look was pain. That she might as well be gazing upon a stranger, and that he took far more than just her sight away in what was the most foolish exchange of her life.