Desert

(cw for language, brief descriptions of sexual content, mentions of/descriptions of emotional issues surrounding themes of SA)

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Has it always felt like this?

Titania doesn't run when she finally hears the wolf-King approach. She doesn't flinch at the pressure of his head on her hindquarters, and she doesn't try to kick him away when he hoists himself upon her. She knows the terms of the deal she's made for herself, knows the terrible price she must pay now to get what she desires later. She widens her stance, bracing for his weight across her back, and lifts her tail to the side, her ears turned back to catch the promises falling like shining jewels from his lips. She doesn't want them. Doesn't want the tether of his soul to hers, the association with his name and all the bloodshed that has followed it, the kingdom or the bloodline or the crown he thrusts upon her head. She doesn't want him; she never has.

Why, then, does her body respond as if she does?

The white-flecked mare cannot help the rush of hormones that overtakes her, dragging her out of the small, innermost part of herself she'd tried to flee to and washing her out into the open. She likes it, the now-familiar feel of their lovemaking, and when it's over she almost wishes he would stay there, sprawled and sweat-slicked over her short frame, joined to her forever in carnal embrace. Satisfaction washes over her, endorphins and exertion and emotion roiling like the sea inside of her, crashing in waves against her ribs. It feels like fighting, in a way, but - at least this time - the injuries inflicted upon her are internal, her own thoughts and memories scoring marks upon her heart in a way that teeth and hooves never could.

Grier was right about her. Vanya, too. She was a whore, selling her body to the highest bidder in service of her own selfishness.

Titania grits her teeth, swallowing back the sob that threatens to escape her throat between her heavy, panting breaths.

Well, fine. If this was the part she had to play, so be it. She had come to the Desert knowing she might lose the last good bits of herself in service of her ultimate goal, and she wasn't about to back out now that things were getting difficult. It would be worth it, in the end, to see the lifeless corpse of her oppressor and know that he could not hurt her anymore. To know that her family would be safe, free to live the lives they deserved, unfettered by the chains that had dragged along behind her for years and years. Maybe she would tell them, one day, what she had gone through to bring them that freedom; what she had sacrificed for that eternal peace. Maybe they would understand. Maybe they wouldn't. It would still be worth it.

Titania gathers the shards of her own self-loathing as the silence grows, carefully pointing their jagged edges outward. She pulls the wolf-King's barbs from her flesh, memorizing them, and adds them to her arsenal.

Abandoned them.

Just as Rille abandoned you.

Mine.

They swarm around her like flies, picking at the tatters of her soul, and before she knows it she has twisted around to face her jade-eyed King, aiming to crush herself against his chest. "Mine," she snarls, the sparks in her dark eyes stoked back to an inferno, and clamps her jaws around his throat, hoping to crush the air from his windpipe and leave him briefly breathless. She releases him, but does not move away, and when she speaks her voice rings with deadly promise, a bone-chilling whisper grazing across the warmth of his salt-damp skin.

"To the ends of the earth, you are mine, Rougaru, as much as I am yours. I am not your prisoner, I am your Queen, and I demand respect."

Titania pushes off of him, shaking off her rage with a snort. "I'm going to the Southern oasis," she says, turning inland once more. "I need to rest. Look for me there tonight: I will be waiting," she adds, "to show you my gratitude, my King, as only a fae Queen can."

She steps away, the lash of her inky tail on his breast coupling with the lingering scent of her heat, both a parting gift and a promise of things to come. She will bring him to his knees - and when she has him where she wants him, when she has gathered her conflicting emotions and stowed them away, when the moment is right and he is at his weakest, she will strike.

She will be his making and his undoing. She will give him the life he has tried for so long to take from her, and she will take every piece of it back and more, until all that remains of him is a shriveled, empty husk.

The newly-crowned Queen pauses, throwing one last dagger over her shoulder.

"And tell that useless painted bitch," she says, "to keep well away from me, lest I take what I am rightfully owed." A smirk, a soft swish of her tail, and she's gone, disappearing like a mirage into the rolling, golden sands.