#bitterbranch

candle light flickers across her features, warming her skin to a deep gold. her hand is pressed under her chin, teeth worrying the nail of her pinkie, her eyes narrowed and focused on the map before her. 

pins hover just above the surface, held with magic, following as she pulls the paper closer. 

“ we’re so close, almendra. “ 

infernal purrs from her, clipped with frustration, edged with excitement. 

sitting up straighter, she runs a hand through her hair, the new silver streak glinting like metal. she pushes it back, not wanting to see it. not wanting the reminder. 

the price she’s paying...... it’s worth it. it has to be. 

they’re so close. 

finally she looks at almendra. despite the concern her friend has just voiced, zahiri is still surprised to see it matched on her features. for just a moment anger flashes hot against her ribs, but she breathes, soothes it. 

almendra has never deserved her rage.  

sighing, she stands with that familiar practiced care, stepping up to her companion’s side. holding out a hand. 

“ i am fine. i promise. and soon i will be even better. “ 

there’s a pause and, for a moment, she looks uncomfortable; a strange sight on her. 

“ i hope you know that having you with me- it means- “ 

she pulls in a breath, forcing her shoulders to relax, her body to find certainty again. 

“ i am grateful. “ 

she watches the procession, too many people filing out from too small a ship. their expressions are so familiar; their heads down, their eyes wide and distant. they don’t even know they are free. can’t even conceptualize it. 

not yet.

a man with a red face, now in manacles so very like his slaves, yells and spits, trying to fight his way from the guards’ grasp, trying to tell them they can’t do this, that he’s too important, that he’ll make them pay. 

she thinks of her master’s cold fingers on her cheek as he told her, quiet and calm, that there was no point running; there was one in the world that would help her. no one would dare lay a hand on him. not for something like her.

she thinks of how she felt all those years. like she wasn’t even there, like there was nothing but space inside of her, expanding to the edges of her body until it stretched her skin and crushed her bones to weightlessness. 

she swallows hard.

“ yes. i think that is what they felt. “ 

he manages to break free from the guards and her breath catches, her hand moving out to her side, instinctively calling her flail into shape. but it doesn’t quite materialize before suddenly there’s a chain around his throat and his face is going from red to purple as one of the slaves holds so tight even the guards can’t pull her off him. 

zahiri feels her lips twitch as a snapping noise reaches her ears and his body slips from the docks to the water.

“ but not anymore. “ 

she turns to almendra, holding her gaze, her own eyes reflecting the sea. with ease, her voice slips into the warm embrace of infernal.

“ if they arrest her i will free her. i won’t let it come back to you but i can’t let her be caged again for her justice. “ 

At least for awhile.

The job was down however and she had been given her pay with a none to gentle word telling her she was dismissed and thats how she found herself wandering through town, still tack with manticore blood. It didn’t take much pressing to get someone to spill about any bath houses. It didn’t take much processing when the word brothel left their lips as well.

A bath house.

A bath house and a brothel. Well wasn’t her luck looking up? She never doubted the Moonweaver, not truly, but she had wondered what good this whole last two weeks had been. She still wasn’t entirely sure why they needed to hunt down the manticore in the first place. It was good money but that mine looked long abandoned. She doubted they would find enough gold there to replenish what they has spent on her but- she wasn’t about to mention that. 

There was a bath house to spend it on, and ladies, and pampering. She made her way lazily down the road, trusting her instincts to guide her where her lack of direction wouldn’t, and sure enough the heavy scent of oleander and azaleas perfumed the road. She looked up at the house for a moment, taking it in as her tail thumped ponderingly against the road, kicking up dust, before she shrugged and wandered inside.