I just smiled to him as he acknowledged noticing my love for adrenaline. I coughed gently to myself in between his words, but I knew it would bother him. I did my best to pretend that I wasn’t hurt. I had held a mask hiding my pain and history for so long that despite the outward aesthetics to the pain I was truly feeling, I could still hide it in my personality. Eyes squinting for a brief moment from the ringing pain in my head and ears before I looked away. The more I thought about it, the more I felt as though if he weren’t at these fights at all, perhaps I wouldn’t ever see him hardly. Especially being ill. Though that would have probably been a bad thing. He probably would’ve thought that I died or something, disappearing so suddenly.

I turned my eyes back to him gently, calmly, as he spoke my name. His voice cutting off for a moment before the vision before me shifted. Eyes widening a little bit. Tembovu had begun turning slightly redder, a darker crimson coloring with his black markings moving over to other places. His horn disappearing and wings sprouting. I turned away from him hoping that what I saw was just an illusion. I didn’t need to know that everything I had just been working for had been a delusion into thinking that I never made it to Helovia. A delusion to where I had been captured long ago but they allowed me to believe that I was safe and content and happy. Was it really a lie? I sighed to myself, swaying my head back over to him and in my now hazy vision, seeing a creature I hadn’t seen in a long time.

And one I hoped I never saw again.

Ears flattened to my skull as I backed away from him. The darkened chestnut Pegasus that stood just where Tembovu had stood. Calstron. The creature that had caused all my pain in the past. The one I ran away from for so long. The one I carried a foal for.  I backed away for a good amount, eyes glued to him to see every inch of his movement. “NO.” I exclaimed, ears twitching and eyes straining to close with the pain that racked my brain. I braced myself into the ground, willing to fight if necessary. Jaw clenching slightly even though it caused a tremendous amount of pain. My chest hurt, my legs hurt, everything was hurting but I couldn’t stop looking at him. “If you think I'm still carrying our child, you're sorely mistaken. I don't even have him anymore because of YOU.”

Hate vibrated in my voice in a way I hadn’t felt it before. Glaring at the beast who caused me to miscarry the only child I ever bore. My mind and body were exhausted, but I refused to be taken back against my will. I had come so far to fall to him because I was vulnerable. I would fight to my death if I had to. In all honesty, I’d rather die than return to him. And here he was, standing right in front of me. My eyes bore into his green ones, where he seemed worried, I saw lies.

"Talk?"

rexanna

And from the minute that the line got drawn,
I couldn't see straight to you for nothing.