☽ Hᴏᴩᴇ﹠Hᴇᴀʀᴛ ☾ · @seabiirds
18th Dec 2019 from TweetCaster
The violet tiefling shivered in the hold of the elf, leaning into his touch ever so slightly and closing her eyes, as if the kiss to her forehead would soothe the headache behind her eyes. Astaro's tail curled tentatively around Jhaelryna's leg, and she mumbled a quiet apology that he so swiftly dismissed. Comforted her in the way his hands rested on her waist, respectable but still warm. Still kind, and gentle. Something she took solace in that eased the pain ever so slightly.
But as he attempted to pull her into a gentle embrace, something clicked. For the first time since she entered the elven village, there was a crack in the barrier of her mind, and the powerful echo of another tiefling's voice rang through her mind. Something, some/one/ from her childhood reminding her that elves did not deserve to live. That they were best as sacrifices to the gods of old, especially the noble. The powerful. The rich.
She reacted without thinking, the headache splitting with an unreasonable amount of pain. She'd move her arms to push his away with the motion of aggression, pupils turning to vicious slits and fangs bared. She'd moved too fast to think, twin daggers that were always coated so lovingly with poison, she'd managed to plant a kick to his sternum that forced him to crumble. She cornered him with blades on either side of his throat, something feral and furious and unrecognisable to Jhaelryna in her eyes.
It, however, was his look of raw fear, the tears in his eyes that pushed the memory of her training back down. The look of nothing but apology and panic that had her falter, that had her mind and headache clear. And when she snapped back to her senses, back to the reminder that this is someone she loves, this is someone she is happy with. This is a place she is happy in. Her expression shifts from cold fury and disgust to dawning realisation, quickly followed by despair and regret and apology, as she backs up from her lover and drops the twin daggers. Her vision tunnelled, as if she didn't recognise her hands when she looked down on them, and she felt her back hit the wall with an absent and dull pain, her legs bucking beneath her as tears rose in her own eyes.
She was a monster.
Even as she distantly heard him try to speak her name, she had a knee-jerk reaction to force herself to stand, to run. To dash past him and find somewhere cold and wet to cleanse her mind. To free herself, or maybe die. She tried to dart past him, but the panic had her trip up, and his arms would catch around her waist, trying to comfort her. Wrapping her in a hug from behind while her tail curled so apologetically around his leg, tears in her eyes and heart thundering in her chest. Again her legs gave way beneath her, hands initially and futilely pushing at Jhaelnyra's hands before she gave up, choking up and instead burying her face in her hands.
The hands of a killer. The hands that slaughtered women and children because she was told no elf was above the others. All were a sacrifice or otherwise… well, dead.
She cried. Cried like the child that never was, because she mourned that she was once so vicious and cruel, so merciless, so… well. Unwilling to change. She'd buried her face in her hands, curling into Jhaelnyra's arms as he held her gently, coaxing her to rest her head on his shoulder while she wept, apologies in infernal slipping out now and then until the migraine in her head won.
He'd long since curled his legs to where he could sit with Astaro close in his arms. She had long since passed out, exhausted from the mental strain, the occasional hiccup still wracking her shoulders. She was strong, sure, but… she felt fragile. And he would do all he could for now to keep her from breaking.