and i was thrashing on the line
He asks her what she remembers. Zairah doesn’t answer, though her face flickers with... revulsion? Fear? Something in her recoils not from the question itself, but from what bubbles up when she tries to grasp at the answer. Flashes of a voice she doesn’t recognize, screaming. Heat, but not like the Climb’s comforting furnace; this is heat with teeth. Stone underneath, something sharp in her chest.
None of it makes sense. Is any of it real?
So instead, she pulls the shirt over her head in one rough motion, leaving Danta’s question hanging in the ash-thick air like smoke from a dying fire. His shirt drapes around her smaller frame like a dress, and she gently shrugs her shoulders in satisfaction.
"Zairah," she answers, sharp and spare, like she’d just given up a secret. Her eyes linger on him a moment too long, taking the measure of his pale, scar-crossed skin, the crystalline horns, the easy confidence in his voice. Her fingers drift upward, brushing over the stub of a horn at her temple, as if needing to confirm with touch what her eyes already suspect; they are alike.
"You lead a region?" she echoes, brows arching high, “You look more like someone who gets kicked out of places.”
But her words are all smoke. There’s no real heat behind them anymore. Just that flickering, hungry edge.
She steps closer to the cave’s mouth, letting the ash-heavy wind tug at her damp hair, nostrils flaring as if scenting something more than sulfur. Her eyes sweep the jagged landscape, the red horizon. It doesn’t feel small, exactly. Unfinished, maybe.
“So there’s more than this,” she says quietly, “Good.”
She pulls the shirt tighter around herself but doesn’t quite leave the cave just yet. Her eyes lock on Danta’s, searching, wary but curious. “Why did you wake me? If I was just some statue, and you're not alone, why go out of your way to pull me out? What do you want from me?”
None of it makes sense. Is any of it real?
So instead, she pulls the shirt over her head in one rough motion, leaving Danta’s question hanging in the ash-thick air like smoke from a dying fire. His shirt drapes around her smaller frame like a dress, and she gently shrugs her shoulders in satisfaction.
"Zairah," she answers, sharp and spare, like she’d just given up a secret. Her eyes linger on him a moment too long, taking the measure of his pale, scar-crossed skin, the crystalline horns, the easy confidence in his voice. Her fingers drift upward, brushing over the stub of a horn at her temple, as if needing to confirm with touch what her eyes already suspect; they are alike.
"You lead a region?" she echoes, brows arching high, “You look more like someone who gets kicked out of places.”
But her words are all smoke. There’s no real heat behind them anymore. Just that flickering, hungry edge.
She steps closer to the cave’s mouth, letting the ash-heavy wind tug at her damp hair, nostrils flaring as if scenting something more than sulfur. Her eyes sweep the jagged landscape, the red horizon. It doesn’t feel small, exactly. Unfinished, maybe.
“So there’s more than this,” she says quietly, “Good.”
She pulls the shirt tighter around herself but doesn’t quite leave the cave just yet. Her eyes lock on Danta’s, searching, wary but curious. “Why did you wake me? If I was just some statue, and you're not alone, why go out of your way to pull me out? What do you want from me?”
somewhere between desperate and divine
Zairah
