From behind closed lids, soft pink light filtered in, casting her poisonous thoughts in the warm shade of blood and skin. She tried to fool herself into believing that she was done, now; that she could simply keep those lovely pastel eyes closed and hide away behind the thin membrane. Reality was an unnecessary privilege, she reasoned, many of the brothers and sisters she had encountered in the pleasure houses had said as much.

They told her of how it got easier, of how after so many visitors, they all just blended together. They said that there was a breaking point and once you found it, all that was left was to crawl inside of your soul. The children of Uumalah had said that the dregs of your spirit would buffer the pain, paint reality into something manageable.

But countless patrons later and the child found that she could not break.

The mare's lip trembled as she found that even now, even faced with a past laid bare before her sovereign, she could not retreat into herself; there was no where to go but forward and no where to look but to the bloodied horizon.

His weight pressed further into her own, mammoth body riddled with scars and bulges of muscle. She felt each dip and ridge and bone as he held her, she felt each breath and beat of his heart as she cradled the remnants of her fury. What would the beautiful behemoth find beneath her words? Would he see the agony and the ashes? Or would he simply view her as something used up, something unworthy of his affections? Lips pursed and teeth clenched - anything to keep the sob that had lodged itself in her throat from escaping.

But there, suddenly, her fears were erased in the wake of her King's words.

Apologies mean nothing to you now...

Her breath hitched, caught on the surge of gratitude that welled in her chest as the rumbling voice swelled and ebbed against her skin. Pastel eyes opened wide, surprise marking her pale features. Valiant Dove... Orithia resisted the urge to deny him, to reassert her self-discrimination in the place of such high praise, yet as Tembovu pressed his ivory nose against her skin, the protests died on her tongue.

The blushed woman let the comforting pressure rest against her for a few moments more before turning her dished skull toward that of her King. Pastel eyes meeting those endless cobalt depths, Orithia said nothing as she pressed her nose gently against his, inhaling as he exhaled and vice verse.

Out of all the things she had been forced to give, forced to share and have stolen away, the Pegasus realized with a start that this moment was the first she had ever experienced that she could call intimate. That she could call her own. There was something about the gentle nature of the beast that stood beside her, the carefully hidden demons, the demanding solidarity that he provided, that felt like peace. Her gaze was no longer the flat, hateful thing it had been only moments before, nor was it the desperate plea; no, there was something akin to warmth in those pupil-less coral eyes as she looked on at her monarch.

Was this what home felt like?

Carefully, as if any misstep would shatter what they had so delicately wrought in spoken words and unshed tears, Orithia's whispery voice floated from her lips. "Your turn, tamu mkombozi. What ghosts haunt your halls?"