Both Wessex and Erebos will remember their fight in the sand as first and foremost, an excellent reason not to stage another spar/battle/hostile takeover on a beach. Not only for the obvious reasons: sand gets everywhere, it’s slippery, and irritating to some skin, but also because it’s difficult to clean out of wounds and treacherous to both sides. Better to pick a place where their side can have the advantage. Because despite all this, they’re still on the same team. After all the damage is done, they will limp back home, either in silent camaraderie or full of another feeling, knowing that they have been weighed, measured and not found wanting.

Yet to deny that she feels some sort of satisfaction as her radiant crown of horns is darkened with actual blood would be to deny a core part of her. The part that finds an inherent satisfaction in violence, the part that comes alive in the midst of a living maelstrom of twisting limbs and swinging, jabbing swords. Just as Deimos has The Reaper’s hoofprints before him, so does she have a legacy of mighty warrior women, all fearsome Queens who have inspired loyalty and praise and even some terribly written, but well-intentioned odes.

All Wessex has left is the drive to prove she’s worthy of her lineage; long after her home has been consumed by mold and monsters, her mother’s sightless eyes rotting somewhere on the forest floor, that she deserves the life they all gave to save her, that she will rise.

Like a good soldier, she will take whatever challenge her General hands her. He will find no accusations, no resentment on her lips, and she can only hope the same goodwill extends back to her. There is no ‘oh shit’ moment as she pierces flesh, no thought of repercussions, only a self-congratulatory yes!which rings throughout her wounded, sliced-up body. The mottled mare pulls away and chances a glance towards Erebos’s face, noting the agony that seems to rend his features apart, and thinks the battle finished. It’s foolish. Head hanging low, she takes a moment to catch her breath, the heat of summer weighing heavily on her despite the cool ocean breeze. She feels flush, hot, weary, and the stinging tug of her own lacerations pulls with every inclination to move, pain made worse when sweat or sand or any foreign object manages to find the cleanly diced edges.

In the next moment, her whole body seems to flinch, curling around itself to ward off an incredible internal pain. Aches are magnified, yes, but there is an anguish she’s steadfastly avoided for a year that resurfaces, the sort of grief that keeps one abed in the mornings, a desperation to be worthy, doubt (so much, so much, so much doubt), guilt, a mixed flash of pride, and some roiling, inexplicable darkness. It steals her breath away. The noble part of Erebos does not come through to help her own goodwill try and fight it off. She seems to quake with a great battle, trembling as emotions she’s damned up come bursting through and decimating all sense of logical self-defense. Her eyes go distant, and her legs seem to act on their own accord, splaying and bracing themselves in the treacherous ground.

As suddenly as it is thrust upon her, it is gone, the battle either won or the darkness dissipated. But there is a lingering seed left in her, a bit that cannot be so easily washed away by honor, nobility, and good will. Perhaps this is what Orsino brings to Erebos: an ever so slight desire to be seen as superior, to make others respect him, by force or magic or any means necessary. And now it sits quietly in Wessex. For now.

Exhaustion seizes her, for emotions can are just as exhausting as physical exertion. She shakes her head and takes slow stock of herself: legs covered in sweat and kicked up sand, the bruise on her shoulder aches as her muscles flex - nay, all her joints seem to throb a bit - scratches and lacerations make her wince, thigh sticky with her own dribbling blood. Half of the whites of her horns are darkened by crimson streaks, and there is some undeniable confusion in her gaze. Wessex looks to Erebos, an unspoken question on her tongue, and she would bite it, but for some childish sense of reassurance that washes over her, post-emotional assault. “Was that you?” she asks neutrally, wondering now if all of them here have some sort of psychic powers no one’s told her about.  

Better yet, how can she get some?