@gwehelyth.
by the time the almighty king ordains the end of the meeting, she is all clenched teeth & white fingers clutching the armrest of her chair. his body, a shadow in her peripheric vision that she tracks down with a slow turn of her head ; predator finding its prey. she does not move further than that, only looks ; calculating eyes devoid of the warmth that she offered the prior morning, eyes hungry & body clumsy as she watched him leave the bed. here, she's all sharp edges & barely concealed fury. she does not even breathe, her heart a silent line as tensed as the rest of her body.
ishtar is surprised. not that he would betray her, because more than one have had the fantasy, but the delivery of it ; clean row of teeth in her heart, a sharp bite without hemorrhage. she is even more surprised of fate's lack of forewarning ___ but honestly, if ishtar had known, caranthir would never have honed his teeth sharp enough to hurt. that's on her. she miscalculated. it happens. never as badly as this, to be sure, but she is also clearly aware of the effect that the elf has had on her lately. he plays her like a master ; ask & you shall recieve. dallying anger & warm laugh against his ribs when she refuses to let go & lazy looks & idle smiles & soft lips against his jaw & an attentive ear & all those fucking other things she did just because she wanted to. she just thought ___ well. does it even matter, what she thought ? girl mixes her own dreams with fate's visions & bares her teeth in retaliation... ffwrch. that's admittedly on her, she will give him that.
but her dragon on a golden plate, brandished in front of a greedy king's eyes, the same one who is oh so desperate for a weapon to use & abuse ? memory offers another image, khairos' demand in her mind like static perturbed by a storm, amil, something's wrong, dewch adref. she thought ___ caranthir woud help. he'd keep it between them. he'd know how fucking dangerous it is to utter truths like that with a king ready to sacrifice anything to get what he wants. « give me a good reason to spare your life. » she demands, her acidic tone barely fighting its way out of the fortified castle of her jaw. that would be the logical choice, truly : their only navigator, struck by lightning & the only witness, dead. khairos would be safe and sound & she would... probably not make it out of there alive, especially without caranthir to help her, but she has worked against worst odds. besides, she doesn't care : anything's better than losing her child to a man's pride. « what solitary thought wandered that empty brain of yours, uh ? » she asks again, more forceful, as her body leaves the chair, each movement far too gracious not too reek of aggression ; knowledge of her dangerous nature hits the same way you know with absolute certitude that a wild animal is going to charge.











