Meadow

In the end, Seze could only hold the charade steady for so long. See, she’d had to shape herself quickly, there hadn’t been the time, or the comfort of a safe place for her to properly ground herself. Everything had been shaken loose and turned upside down, and at night she was haunted by flames. A castle of sand, with shards of glass guarding her turrets to deter any who thought to clamber over her hastily constructed walls - that’s all she was.

And maybe Sigurðr had seen right through her.

His act of standing his ground, refusing to yield beneath her harsh attempts to push him away, had served to crash over her like a wave, so that all her ferocity was left in ruins, and the sharpness of her was shattered, crushed underfoot. Not dust to dust, but sand back to sand. Even seared by flame, fashioned into deadly sharpness, glass was still fragile, and in the end, it proved to offer her no more defense than the shifting, unstable sand beneath her hooves.

At the tensing of his body - his posture making clear that there was more to him than just his voice, Seze shrank back, turned her face away and closed her eyes, as if to blind herself to the blow she was sure was coming. (He was so much more than his voice, and she - in the end, her voice was all she was - loud and harsh, bitter and angry. Savage and so, so sad. Intangible, and torn away by the wind.)

“I made a mistake,” she whispered hoarsely, the muscles of her body tensing as well, but not to lunge. (Like a castle of sand, swamped by the rush of the incoming tide, she collapsed in on herself). “And I’m sorry!” Her green eyes opened, and furtively she turned her face to him, but her gaze was unfocused, like she couldn’t quite see him, or was looking at something beyond him.

“How am I supposed to know what you want from me,” she murmured even softer, as a violent shivering started up in her bones. (Somewhere, across the strait between this island and another the air was always cold, and Seze could feel it. There was no lick of flame to keep her warm.) “When you won’t tell me?!” There is no breath left in her lungs, and as she inhales raggedly, she comes to her senses, retreating a small step back.

Seze’s green eyes widen as she meet’s the stallion’s hard, unrelenting stare, and she continues in her retreat, seeking some small space in which she can gather all the pieces of herself that had been laid to waste, scattered by the sharp breeze of Sigurðr’s defiance. Her amber ears flatten to her pale red-gold mane as she bitterly acknowledges his words. “No, I’m not your overlord or your woman. I’m no-one.” And she turns her back to him, apathetic, no longer venomous, no longer afraid. Just empty. “Why should it matter what I want?”