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NASREEN
The dark stallion darts away, easily avoiding her clacking teeth, but even more sudden is the feathered blur that plummets from the sky with an outraged cry, sharp talons reaching for the girl’s eyes. With a shriek, she ducks, skittering sideways and hiding her head beneath copper wings, embarrassingly forced from her moment of rebellion into a posture of submission by none other than a bird she dwarfs. Feeling the sting of this insult, she draws herself up again (at a safer distance), ready to scream at him anew, when she is met with the onslaught of his words.
They cut into her, his anger matching her own as he denies her accusations, ears lying flat against his skull. Perhaps she should have expected it from him, this, this monster(!), the only one who has ever dared to treat her in such a manner. No one, no one has ever spoken to her in such a way, even Quilyan in the worst of their arguments had tried to placate her with soothing words as she unleashed the torrent of her rage upon him. But Bucephalus spares no feeling, flinging every word back in her face with an added venom that catches her off-guard, with accusations of his own that take her breath away. Spoiled? Naïve? Pink nostrils flare in self-righteous indignation. Did he know who she was?
And that was when the realization hit home, came crashing down around her again, that she was, in fact, nobody. Whatever she had been, whatever she had once had, it was all gone now. Who had she been fooling all these years, clinging to the hope of home and resting confidently in the power of her bloodline, waiting for some royal title to come save her and make everything right again? In the face of her own delusion, Nasreen let out a stifled gasp, knees buckling and eyes clouded with grief. But the attack hadn’t concluded yet. With an icy stare, the brute regarded her and delivered the death blow, questioning her loyalty to the Edge.
His final accusation pierced her heart like an arrow, cutting her to the quick. Trembling legs stumbled, bracing wide for support as her tearstained head hung low, muzzle quivering as she panted in long, ragged breaths. He was right, of course. What she had always thought of as hope and love had led her astray from nothing, taken her from those who would have been her surrogate family if only she had embraced reality and let them in. But it was too late, and they were gone now, vanished during the long season of her absence. And It. Was. Her. Fault.
Quaking knees finally gave way, and the spent mare collapsed on the ground before her tormentor, drawing into herself, cradling her white-splashed sides with dusty wings. Now that the beast was silent, she expected him to leave her to her misery. He had won, after all. Yet some perverse part of her wished that he wouldn’t, for as horrible as he was, Nasreen couldn’t bear the thought of being alone in this moment. She would rather suffer his abuse than float adrift in the world, like a leaf on a current with nowhere to go.
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