What Comes Before

[Oriena]

If he insisted on being difficult about it, Oriena would pay in kind. Granted, Nox had been one of the men responsible for saving her life (as paltry a gift as it felt right now) and she didn’t forget it, even if he would never hear her thank him for it. But patience was fluttering on gossamer wings; there was a monster living in her head, and she no longer knew the delineation between it and the shredded remains of her own soul. Feelings bled. Anger fuelled. And oh she was burning in that inferno.

Burning, and bound, and screaming, as the ijiraq had been for eons.

“You never wondered why.” She laughed, bitter. “Of course you didn’t. No one did.”

Why they attacked. Why they fed. What they were.

She pulled her feet off the table. “But you said it yourself. You said it your fucking self. A tablet. Do you think they had a choice? Do you think I do?”

Power still swarmed and wreathed, though she had yet to do anything with it; it was the beacon upon which she was clinging to like a mast in a storm. The emotions weren’t all hers, but they leeched to the rot already inside. Nox was emotionless. He didn’t care, and she didn’t expect him to. Oriena was hardly the damsel upon which heroes clamoured over themselves in order to rescue. Whether he wished to help her was immaterial, though.

“I asked you nicely, Nox.” She tsked. One of the chairs jerked out, waiting. Darkness touched Ori’s expression, and also challenge; gasoline begging for the match. “You can try it the difficult way first, if you want. But I promise you, neither of us will like the consequences.”