Ah, the poor queen, she should not have spoken her heart. She should not have said what she knew to be true, not have spoken the words that had boiled up in her heart and spilled up out of her mouth. She should have censored herself, should have stopped herself from saying what she really meant. But how could she say anything else? How could she lie to him? It would have created a void between them, a rift, a gap; however, was any distance as great as the one that opened up when he pulled away from her? It could have been inches or feet that was between them, but Kahlua felt like it was miles. She could see him here before her and yet he was so far away. She longed to reach forward again, to rectify the mistake she had made, to close the distance... but she was stopped. Foreign words rolled from his foreign tongue and she looked at him with lack of comprehension in her eyes. But there was something else there- a new kind of heartbreak. What had she done to him? Oh, just one more member of her herd she had hurt through her actions. Was she destined to cause such destruction in the bonds she had created?

And perhaps it was so, as his wings limped and fell into the water, the crimson fluid that had washed him of some of his sins, only for Kahlua to lay her own sins upon him. And she did not know what to do other than watch him back up, lifting her hoof up as if to move forward, but she hesitated. He wanted to move away, so why would she follow? He wanted to distance herself from her, so why would she go near? Did he hate her? Had she made a mistake, did he not feel the same? She should have considered it, should have said nothing... it seemed certain to her that this had all been a terrible, terrible misunderstanding on her part. But then words, solace to her heart, in a way. He spoke, and she hung on his words as though they were the most important thing the world to her. And her heart broke anew to know that he did not return the feeling, to know that he only wanted to know of her tears. She looked at him sadly. He knew nothing of cages the way she did. Would he understand? Could she explain?

With a sigh, she stepped forward, entering the bloody waters, staining the white portions of her limbs red. Red for love, or red for the bleeding of her soul? The metaphor was lost on her. She was thinking only of her king. Her Kaj. Or perhaps not hers, it seemed. “Do chains not scare you?” she asked him at first, not sure how to explain what it was she wanted to say. “Do cages not make you tremble in fear?” She paused. She sighed. She looked left and right, up and down. She splashed in the water. Anything to give her peace from this torture, anything to save her from having to explain her fear. Would he think her weak? Or maybe, just maybe, he would begin to understand. Could he understand why she ran from the Edge for days on end? Would he want to? Or would he just think her weak? Kahlua could not see anything in his blue eyes. Would he even understand? “I cry for my lost freedom... Wouldn't you?” But no, of course he would not. He was stalwart, grand, steady. He would cry for nothing, perhaps. She walked backwards out of the water and looked at the distance she had created between them. Perhaps she had discounted the cliff too soon...


@[Kaj]