The darkness.
She hated it, almost as much as she hated herself, at times. But they were one and the same, Yseulte and the darkness, and so she simply endured it, as she always had. There was no ridding yourself of darkness, she'd learned, because only from light are shadows cast. Surely that meant she wasn't entirely terrible, right? She could feel Itzal sneer in her mind, playing on her doubts like a predator that toys with its prey before shredding it to pieces and devouring it in the same bite. He was the source of her darkness, she realized sadly, but his darkness is mine, because he is part of me.
Despite their many differences (as well as an uncanny resemblance of character that she preferred not to think about), the two journeyed together in the darkness. She followed the luminous violet glow ahead of her, catching flashes of his eyes between the trees, iridescent purple and silver. Snow kissed her withers in the gentle embrace of winter—one she was all too familiar with, and her crippled hind leg simply ached thinking of that wintry night atop the mountain, when wolves had bayed all around her in the night. The lack of light and warmth was suffocating, and the dense trees pressing in all around her did naught to relieve her frayed nerves and aching leg.
Well, Itzal might be comfortable in this bone-chilling cold and smothering darkness, but Yseulte was not. She was a wild desert flower, conceived and born of fire itself onto sands scorched and burned beneath the sun's hostile gaze, raised with her desert sisters and the feel of the dry desert wind in her hair, and the shifting earth and scorpions beneath her hooves. Even the seasons were different here in Helovia—this Frostfall was an alien concept to Yseulte (only last year had she experienced snow for the first time), and her lithe desert body was ill adapted to such a frigid environment. She was thinner than she ought to be, and missed the Edge's blazing fires in this everlasting darkness.
But she could not look back. Not now, not when she had vowed to forget them forever.
Torasin, Lace, Thor, the Dragonheart...
Forget them.
Instead of turning back, she pressed on blindly, stumbling in the darkness and leaving every remembrance of warmth and light behind her with every passing step. Itzal snarled softly somewhere to her left, a familiar sound that he used when swearing under his breath. That could only mean one thing: they had company.
And my, what a comely creature she is; eyes bright and bold as a full moon. Curious and cautious, Yseulte analyzed the lithe damsel before revealing herself. The glowing pathways cast a lovely silver sheen over skin that looked drenched in dark blood, but in the sunlight (if it would ever come again), surely there could not be a color more rich and dark and intoxicating than this stranger's fine skin. Pale, ghostly hair contrasted against the midnight hues of her skin, and when she moved, lithe and graceful as a cougar, her hair shimmered and swayed. And those eyes! Like Itzal, she sported venomous eyes that were unusually bright and bold in the darkness, glittering with some feral wildness that Yseulte admired. Alluring as a sweet red rose with poisoned thorns; dangerous and deadly as a viper. The scarlet woman was truly a magnificent specimen, this damsel, perfect in every physical aspect. She had never met anyone half-so lovely as herself—perhaps today she had at long last met her equal.
"The night becomes you, scarlet sister," Yseulte says at last, revealing herself and striding slowly through the darkness as if wading through a lake of black ink. Ignoring the slight limp that plagues her every step, Itzal followed close at her heels, bird feathers protruding from his black lips and blood glittering at his pale throat like a necklace of rubies. Ever the iron maiden, her expression yielded no sign of any emotion that might be present; unfathomable and cold as steel. But beneath this mask of invulnerability, Yseulte was wary.
As she had learned from her monstrously beautiful father, beautiful things were not to be trusted. |
.svg/2000px-Google_Chrome_icon_(2011).svg.png){kind=icon}
