[Maybe... maybe this isn't Liem after all. Hadn't she told him over the campfire not a night before this raid that she had caught a Zenite (that pathetic, perverted, irreverent brat who had wronged her, wronged Set, now wronged Liem-), stealing his form to invade their camp? When asked how she had known it was not him, when she had claimed that it looked and sounded and smelled exactly like him...
Had she not averted her halved gaze with slight embarrassment to need admit that even though it was because... because of many things, like the way Gen had pronounced her name and his posture... it was primarily because he had been cruel to her. That she had extended her hand to touch him in concern and he had rebuffed her. The fact that she had confirmed it by pretending to confirm an appointment that night for her to read with him, that "Liem" had failed the test by giving any answer except "since when did you learn to read?"... That had just been the nail in the coffin.
And now she's staring at red sick up splashed on the mossy ground between her dirty hooves and Liem is... Perhaps this was all a trick, perhaps he had been ambushed himself when retrieving the Wing and this was a spy ready to follow her to Meridian's camp and take all of the objects they had gathered for victory...]
Ah. I did.
[She did. She'd shredded that spell to pieces, she'd struck fear into his heart with her own powers, with the newly gained blessing of a war god that she could use to cloak herself in power and unfathomable menace, so why- ? Why did she still want to be sick, feeling herself choking on her own tongue, the saliva she couldn't stop ripping down her chin, the bit cutting into the soft flesh at the corners of her mouth? Why could she not erase that disgusting helplessness even though she'd come out the victor-]
He should have known it would... [That it would be... that it would be that, and-] ... He cast it anyway...
[No. She would have... but Liem, technically, had struck the last blow. Liem, his teeth sharp and blood welling up around them, his throat bobbing with swallow after swallow... But there's no time. She cannot do this here, she cannot let herself demand answers now, they must... they had to get the Oracle object to safety, she couldn't fight like this-
A sudden curse bursts out of her as her long struggle with the water flask ending in the damn thing falling unopened from her shaky, non-dominant hand and rolling slightly away. Hayame suddenly jerks a hoof to kick dirt and rotting plant matter over her vomit, burying it in case they were followed before she turns to Liem, goes to him for his assistance in resetting the right arm hanging limp and twitching from her injured shoulder.
But she isn't looking at him like an ally or a healer or a friend.
no subject
Had she not averted her halved gaze with slight embarrassment to need admit that even though it was because... because of many things, like the way Gen had pronounced her name and his posture... it was primarily because he had been cruel to her. That she had extended her hand to touch him in concern and he had rebuffed her. The fact that she had confirmed it by pretending to confirm an appointment that night for her to read with him, that "Liem" had failed the test by giving any answer except "since when did you learn to read?"... That had just been the nail in the coffin.
And now she's staring at red sick up splashed on the mossy ground between her dirty hooves and Liem is... Perhaps this was all a trick, perhaps he had been ambushed himself when retrieving the Wing and this was a spy ready to follow her to Meridian's camp and take all of the objects they had gathered for victory...]
Ah. I did.
[She did. She'd shredded that spell to pieces, she'd struck fear into his heart with her own powers, with the newly gained blessing of a war god that she could use to cloak herself in power and unfathomable menace, so why- ? Why did she still want to be sick, feeling herself choking on her own tongue, the saliva she couldn't stop ripping down her chin, the bit cutting into the soft flesh at the corners of her mouth? Why could she not erase that disgusting helplessness even though she'd come out the victor-]
He should have known it would... [That it would be... that it would be that, and-] ... He cast it anyway...
[No. She would have... but Liem, technically, had struck the last blow. Liem, his teeth sharp and blood welling up around them, his throat bobbing with swallow after swallow... But there's no time. She cannot do this here, she cannot let herself demand answers now, they must... they had to get the Oracle object to safety, she couldn't fight like this-
A sudden curse bursts out of her as her long struggle with the water flask ending in the damn thing falling unopened from her shaky, non-dominant hand and rolling slightly away. Hayame suddenly jerks a hoof to kick dirt and rotting plant matter over her vomit, burying it in case they were followed before she turns to Liem, goes to him for his assistance in resetting the right arm hanging limp and twitching from her injured shoulder.
But she isn't looking at him like an ally or a healer or a friend.
She looks at him like a
monstertraitor.]