[They grapple in the field, hooves churning up dirt and wrestling for position smearing it on skin and coats, bay dun and fiery red turning a unified shade of Alenroux dust and soil. A combined ton of somehow-both-centaurine flesh fighting for dominance, until finally they come to some sort of stalemate, Hayame on top with a heavy pin and Set below with a powerful grip on her breast bindings, threatening to expose her Shard and the precious iliachtida she never showed to anyone.
But she will have to show it to him. If she is to take the advice she demands to bring him back from whatever place that shade has taken him, then she will have to cup that precious bead in her palm and let Meridian's energy run through it, bringing back that perfectly accurate vision of that forest-covered mountain and the hidden village in the trees. She will have to show him Matsukaze, Mikuni, and his child lieutenants, their only fighting forces, she will need to show him the Armless Kohibari, the pregnant Koume, and the countless children that needed to be protected. Her stable master and his men, circling the mountain, her brother in their ranks, the cliff Matsukaze planned to bring down with an explosion she helped him cause...
Hope blossoms in her chests even though she didn't mean to let it. ... Could it really be possible? If a god of war was the one to examine it, could a way be found- ? The thought distracts her just long enough, it breaks the fierce focus of her pin on his body and at that exact moment... He strikes. She feels his hands rip free from her, she seizes up in preparation of needing to fight him flipping her onto her back, kicking her footing out from under her, or locking onto a limb, but instead... instead-
Her face presses into his chest, an elbow threatens to buckle, their equine barrels align and she can feel... She can feel his hearts pounding against her own, the larger organ in their lower halves thrumming against each other and the one in his upper half pulsing in her ear.
It has been years and years and years since she had heard the thrum of a double heartbeat that wasn't her own.]
Then you-
[He tries to force hope into a body that has none, to demand that she live instead of die... Not only living, but that she will live a good life? That she will be happy? That she will find a place for herself in that village and come to know the joys of being a free jinba, a woman, a member of a family? He thinks he can just do that, without her-]
You will atone as well!
[The screams and cries that had leaked into their communion at the World's Edge, the dark mark on his hand that she didn't fully understand but knew had to be some sort of curse or binding beyond her comprehension... Hayame's teeth grit, her voice growls and cracks with emotion and fierceness and upset and confusion, her lungs all burn for air. Set is a god of war, he will always be a god of war, but that does not mean he can't... She had seen the regret and the pain on his face, in his voice when the black like-blood leaked from his nose and his ears-]
You will go back and return to your son!
[Her hearts tighten at the memory she had seen in the Hall of Mirrors as she lay injured on the icy ground, the one in which he had cradled that dark-haired boy close as he wept in longing for his father. A scene that had been so intensely painful for a woman like her to see- one who had never been held by a loving parent, who had viewed children as the sickest punishment that could be forced on her. But Set's expression, in that moment... that had been love, she could see it even if she'd never felt it.]
And you will rip that shade from the recesses of your mind and burn out his hold on you!
[She doesn't even know it's name, but she knows that she hates it- the whispers she can sense in Set's mind bleeding into his, the strange hum of possessiveness that reminds her both of Lord Miyatsuta and simultaneously... something far more powerful and far more terrifying than a local warlord with a taste for pretty jinbaflesh. Set... Set was more wild than even the freest mountain jinba, he was not meant to be owned or imprisoned or drowned in the sick, crimson petals of those putrid, overripe flowers-]
no subject
But she will have to show it to him. If she is to take the advice she demands to bring him back from whatever place that shade has taken him, then she will have to cup that precious bead in her palm and let Meridian's energy run through it, bringing back that perfectly accurate vision of that forest-covered mountain and the hidden village in the trees. She will have to show him Matsukaze, Mikuni, and his child lieutenants, their only fighting forces, she will need to show him the Armless Kohibari, the pregnant Koume, and the countless children that needed to be protected. Her stable master and his men, circling the mountain, her brother in their ranks, the cliff Matsukaze planned to bring down with an explosion she helped him cause...
Hope blossoms in her chests even though she didn't mean to let it. ... Could it really be possible? If a god of war was the one to examine it, could a way be found- ? The thought distracts her just long enough, it breaks the fierce focus of her pin on his body and at that exact moment... He strikes. She feels his hands rip free from her, she seizes up in preparation of needing to fight him flipping her onto her back, kicking her footing out from under her, or locking onto a limb, but instead... instead-
Her face presses into his chest, an elbow threatens to buckle, their equine barrels align and she can feel... She can feel his hearts pounding against her own, the larger organ in their lower halves thrumming against each other and the one in his upper half pulsing in her ear.
It has been years and years and years since she had heard the thrum of a double heartbeat that wasn't her own.]
Then you-
[He tries to force hope into a body that has none, to demand that she live instead of die... Not only living, but that she will live a good life? That she will be happy? That she will find a place for herself in that village and come to know the joys of being a free jinba, a woman, a member of a family? He thinks he can just do that, without her-]
You will atone as well!
[The screams and cries that had leaked into their communion at the World's Edge, the dark mark on his hand that she didn't fully understand but knew had to be some sort of curse or binding beyond her comprehension... Hayame's teeth grit, her voice growls and cracks with emotion and fierceness and upset and confusion, her lungs all burn for air. Set is a god of war, he will always be a god of war, but that does not mean he can't... She had seen the regret and the pain on his face, in his voice when the black like-blood leaked from his nose and his ears-]
You will go back and return to your son!
[Her hearts tighten at the memory she had seen in the Hall of Mirrors as she lay injured on the icy ground, the one in which he had cradled that dark-haired boy close as he wept in longing for his father. A scene that had been so intensely painful for a woman like her to see- one who had never been held by a loving parent, who had viewed children as the sickest punishment that could be forced on her. But Set's expression, in that moment... that had been love, she could see it even if she'd never felt it.]
And you will rip that shade from the recesses of your mind and burn out his hold on you!
[She doesn't even know it's name, but she knows that she hates it- the whispers she can sense in Set's mind bleeding into his, the strange hum of possessiveness that reminds her both of Lord Miyatsuta and simultaneously... something far more powerful and far more terrifying than a local warlord with a taste for pretty jinbaflesh. Set... Set was more wild than even the freest mountain jinba, he was not meant to be owned or imprisoned or drowned in the sick, crimson petals of those putrid, overripe flowers-]
Do you hear me, Set?