Queen Yavara Ch. 34

"I gave you so much; so much that you don't deserve." She touched my lips with her sullied fingers, and I opened them to taste myself. "I could've made you love me like April loves Brock. I could've broken you to nothing and built you to my liking, but then you would've been ruined."

"What do you want from me?!" I hissed.

"What you stole from me!" She hissed back, grabbing my head and forcing my gaze to hers, "I want love! I want friendship! I want someone who knows me down to my bones! You stole that from me, and now you have it, and I want it back!"

I stared into her wrathful gaze, and whispered, "I can't give that to you."

"But I can take it from you." Yavara whispered back. Eva aimed the crossbow, Faltia and Alexa dug in their heels, Furia brandished the dagger. It wouldn't matter. A thousand of us didn't stand a chance against her. I summoned moisture into my dry mouth, and spat into Yavara's face.

"No, you can't!" I snarled, "You can kill them all before my eyes, and not steal what I have! I am whole and you are broken, Yavara. Even Elena realized that before the end, for she cursed your name when they were cutting pieces off her!"

Then, the world was red. It quivered before my eyes, pulsing with the sudden acceleration of my heart. Her eyes were burning before me, staring through my lenses and into my mind, the connection between us growing like a vine corded with thorns, tearing into my mind, sawing, cutting, scraping through thoughts and memories. Blood was coming out of my eyes. It was running from my nostrils. There was a whining scream in my ears, and it became higher and higher, the sound splitting through my skull! Furia was on top of Yavara, furiously stabbing at her with a knife whose blade bent every time it struck the Dark Queen's flesh. Faltia was trying to break her arm, Alexa was trying to yank her backward, Eva was loading another crossbow bolt. The others were pulling at me, trying to get me away, but I was locked between Yavara's hands, forced to stare into those eyes as the last of my heartbeats drummed through my fevered mind.

Run, you idiots! I thought to them, I bought you a few seconds, now run!

The screaming pitch broke, and my ears burst. I felt the blood running hot down my neck, and only heard the drumming in my temples. In the inferno of my dying moments, I couldn't summon the will to fight, or even to plead for their lives. I could only feel a resigned sorrow, a coldness of my psyche that could only take solace in the knowledge that it would all be over soon. The red world faded. The agony turned to a dull ache. My thoughts slowed and drifted, turning to transient moments that I could not discern from reality. Alexa gnashed her teeth, trying to pull Yavara away from me. Alexa grinned, trying to pull Faltia off Brianna in a wrestling match. Faltia delivered blows to Yavara's elbow. Faltia boxed Eva on the training grounds, both women wearing bloody smiles. Furia was screaming as she punched Yavara's head with the broken hilt of her dagger. Furia was giggling as brushed the hair from my face. "I love you." She whispered. I repeated it back to her.

Oh my god, what am I doing? Came a voice from the depths of my mind. The agony came back to me, the piercing red filling my vision, that terrible scream lancing through the cacophony of my cerebral pulse. Then the world was color once more, and the pressure in my head was gone.

Yavara fell backward, an expression of utter horror on her face. Then Furia's fist smashed into Yavara's cheek, and her head wrenched to the side. Her shield was down. They came upon her like animals. Eva sent a heel to her ribs, Faltia brought an elbow down on her stomach, Alexa pounced on her and delivered blow after blow to her chest. The others surged in after, their killer's training guiding their wrathful strikes, smashing knuckles into soft tissue, caving-in cartilage, fracturing bone. Yavara curled herself into a fetal ball and took the punishment, crying into her arms as her shoulders and back were brutalized, her interlocking fingers smashed with kicks being dealt to her head. They were going to kill her, and she was going to let them. I was going to let them.

There was a sudden gust of wind, and everyone was blown back. Arbor beat her mighty wings again, and those that still stood were sent sprawling. She crouched before Yavara, and made to take her in her arms, but Yavara held up a staying hand, three of the fingers snapped crooked. She shakenly got to her knees, and vomited once more. With all the wine in her belly, I couldn't tell how much of what she expelled was blood. She managed to get one foot beneath her, but she could not stand. After two failed attempts, she began to crawl. Up the stairs of her castle, the Dark Queen labored, her bloody knees and hands leaving prints in her wake. She crossed the atrium, climbed the final steps before the throne, and disappeared into the blackness from whence she came.

"I can't fucking believe you took her side." Kiera growled at Arbor.

"My duty is to my children, Kiera. Yavara is too great an enemy for me to contend with, and if I had let you kill her, the vengeance the orcs would wreak would not end with you."

"Hopefully the cunt will just bleed out." Eva snarled.

"Either way, we need to leave." Faltia said, "I'll go down to the docks and warn the captain. We'll be halfway to Hektinar by dawn."

"I'll go to the treasury and secure our funds." Soraya said.

"I'll get provisions from the stores." Brianna added.

"I'm not leaving." I muttered.

Furia grabbed me by the shoulders, and forced my face to hers. "You are getting on that fucking ship, Adrianna! If I have to tie you the fucking mast, I'll do it!"

"She let me go."

"She's a goddamn maniac!"

"She's still at war with our homeland."

Furia snatched the dagger that was strapped to my thigh. "Arbor can't take us all at once." She whispered, "If the others swarm her, I'll go do what needs to be done. It's like we talked about."

"No."

"We don't need to kill Brock. With the Highland Rift entrenched, they'll have no chance of invading without Yavara."

"No!" I shouted, and climbed to my feet.

Furia got in front of me. "Don't do this!" She hissed, "You were right about her all along, and we should've listened to you! Now listen to yourself!"

"Get out of my way."

"You're in no shape to fight me, Adrianna. If I have to choke you out, I will."

I took her chin in my hand. "This place is my home, and I'm not leaving it like a coward."

"She'll kill you."

"Maybe that would be justice."

"Justice?! After what she's done to you?"

"The score isn't even yet, Furia." I kissed her lips before she could speak, and left her at the bottom of the steps.

I followed the trail of blood across the atrium, up the risers before the Black Throne, and beyond it. The darkness swallowed me, my path lit by shafts of moonlight that streamed from the windows high above, displaying an archway of lunar light that illuminated the stone floor. I passed one, then the other, then stopped at the third. She was huddled on the ground, weeping silently to herself. Each breath was ragged and hoarse, rattling in her broken chest. Her lip was bloodied to a pulp and split five different ways, her nose was crooked, and her eyes were dull. In the lunar light, she a monochromatic blue, but her blood was purple. I sat cross-legged beside her on the stone, the shaft of light barely catching my face.

"I remember when we first met. Not as ranger and princess, but as enemies." I said, "You tried to kill me in Ardeni Dreus, do you remember? I thought I was rescuing you, then I felt you in my head, and my body was no longer my own. If it weren't for the city guard, you would've made me cut my own throat."

She blinked at me, a pool of blood forming from around her mouth.

"Not exactly a great first impression." I mused, "And I guess our relationship didn't get much better from there. We gave each other every reason to hate. It was easy to think of you as a monster."

"I am a monster." She croaked.

"In so much as people are monsters."

"I'm broken. You said so yourself, and I tried to kill you because it was the truth. That's what monsters do. It's what Leveria would do."

"Do you worry that you're like her?"

"I know I am."

"You're not. I know you both very well, and I can promise you that Leveria would never be goaded to murder because someone insulted her."

"So I'm worse."

"No. Leveria would've had me killed weeks ago. She's pragmatic like that, but you're sentimental in a really fucked up way."

Yavara snorted blood. "I guess I am. I thought about you a lot while I was up at the war camp. When Trenok told me about you, I knew you'd become who I hoped you would. I was proud, like how a mother is proud. Call it my fucked-up sentimentality. I thought maybe when I came back, you would've changed enough, and enough time would've passed that I could join the family. What kind of psycho delusional shit is that?"

I watched specs of dust float in the lunar beam, and shook my head. "These last two weeks have been the best days of my life, and it gnaws at me. There's a part of me that wants to be miserable, but I can't be, try as I might. It felt like I was letting you beat me. Now I see that I've actually won."

A tear tracked along Yavara's swollen cheek. "No one ever told me how lonely it would be." She whispered, "I always thought Leveria had no friends because she was a hateful bitch, but she was the heir; she could never have friends. No wonder she fell in love with the only man who could understand her. Father practically groomed her."

"What?!"

Yavara cracked a horrendous smile. "You didn't know? Some director of intelligence you were." Her smile faded, "But at least she has someone. You took all my someones away from me, Adrianna. With no one there to fill the void, I tried to groom you. Even if you hated me, at least you hated me as a person, but now you don't even hate me anymore." The tears dripped freely from her eyes, "I wish I could take it back. All of it. I wish I had gone to Castle Thorum that day instead of choosing to camp by the forest. Then you and I would've been nothing more than friendly strangers, and I would've never known who I was. I'm so, so sorry, Adrianna. I'm just so fucking alone."

She wept silently into her broken hands, her diaphragm wracked with spasms every time she took in a sobbing breath. I gently took her head in my hands, and rested it in my lap. I stroked her hair as she vented, suppressing each sob with a hiss so that her grief would not echo in the halls. Even now the chains of power shackled her, not letting her express the depths of her despair. Wasn't this what I wanted? Wasn't this the vengeance I had sought? Then why were there tears in my eyes? Why was my chest so laden with guilt?

I took one breath, then another, and let them both out slowly. "Elena is alive." I whispered.

She froze in my lap. Her sobs ceased. She elevated her head a fraction, turning it so that one eye narrowed up at me. "What did you say?"

"Elena is alive and well in Bentius. She tried to contact you on my mirror, and I didn't tell you, because I wanted you to suffer." I barely could say the last words; my voice was shaking so. She slowly got off my lap. Her flesh ignited with energy, her scratches healing, her swelling subsiding, her bones clicking back into place. Her orange eyes burned from the monochromatic blue cast of her body, shining like furious flames in the lunar curtain. I could hear the castle groaning around me, the sound of beams being put under great strain. I could feel the floor shaking beneath me. Yavara extended her hand, and grabbed me by the hair on the back of my head. Then she pulled me against her, and wept into my shoulder. This time, she let her grief sound unfettered from her mouth, and it echoed through the hall, beautiful and sonorous, harmonized with her joy. She held onto me like a lifesaver, and I found myself embracing her in turn, weeping into her shoulder, feeling the weight of the world being lifted from me.

"I'm so sorry!" She bawled, "Oh my god, Adrianna, I'm so sorry!"

"So am I."

It was natural for us then to bring our lips together. Though it was sexual, it was not hedonistic when our interlocking legs parted to join ourselves at our centers and feel the other's lust pressing into our own. When we rolled on the stone floor with our tongues entwined and our bodies heaving to grind our crotches, it was not with a desire for the flesh that we acted, but a desire to heal. We were dark-elves, and for us, sex was a language unto itself. Her breasts molded into mine, her nipples stabbed against me, and her wet heat saturated my nethers as our clits fought in wriggling combat, each pass making them swell, each motion heightening the sensation. My hands were filled with her ass, and hers were filled with mine, and we spread each other to deliver fingers, sensually penetrating in congruence with our deep undulations. We made love as equals on the stone floor, and we panted into each other's mouths when we ascended into sweet ecstasy.

ARBOR

Adrianna came out of the darkness with Yavara. The other hybrids stood with their provisions ready, waiting to leave. They didn't say anything to each other, just stood and stared. Furia was the first to break from the group, and walk up the steps. I could've heard what Yavara said to her, but I decided not to listen. The words didn't matter much anyway. Yavara dropped to her knees before Furia, and Furia put arms around her, and looked to Adrianna for answers. There was still a secret there, something that hadn't quite been said, but enough had been spoken to heal the wounds that had festered in the Dark Queen. One by one, the hybrids dropped their things, and went to her. They surrounded her and embraced her, and she stayed on her knees before them, prostrating in apology. I knew enough about dark-elves to know where this was going. Yavara flipped up the bottom of Furia's robe, and took all nine inches of Furia's tattooed cock deep into her gullet. Someone sounded a whoop, and suddenly all clothes were being thrown off. I shook my head, and flapped away.

As I glided over the city, I listened to the sounds of revelry that came from it. There were so few plants that I was nearly spiritually blinded, and could only see through the scant weeds that grew in less trampled-upon areas of the streets. It was chaos down there. I did not understand it. There was no harmony in that life, only a percussive discordance of brass instruments and drums, lived in the explosive moments and dying just as violently. Somewhere down there, was a woman I once loved more than anything, and she would find herself at home in all that chaos. I flapped harder, and sped over the cityscape as fast as I could. When I reached the fields, I felt like I could breathe again.

I descended to my arboretum, and snuggled myself in the nest I'd made in the trees. While my immortal mind was always wakeful, my mortal flesh needed sleep. The drugs had begun to withdraw from my system, and I was left so sapped of energy that I nearly passed out the moment my head touched the straw. Something kept me from slumber. Singing. I heard singing. It came from a soft voice, and the words it spoke were not words at all, but infantile imitations of them. I peered from the edge of my nest, not daring to make a sound.

She was in the arboretum, dancing on her toes, twirling as she examined the flowers she once tended, the bushes she once grew, the fruits she once labored over. She didn't seem to understand them, yet there was slight recognition in her eyes. It amounted only to a benign curiosity, but there was a question in her expression nonetheless, something that compelled her to wonder. She did not know why she had come, but she had. She remembered something.

"That is an orchid." I said to her.

Her eyes shot up to me, and she narrowed them, assessing if I was food or a threat. When she deduced that I was neither, she turned her attention back to the flower. "Orchid." She echoed. She pirouetted down the path, and paused at another flower.

"That is a tulip." I said.

"Tulip." She repeated. She cartwheeled around the garden, then did a flip, and stopped at another flower.

"That is a rose." I whispered, my voice catching in my throat.

She cocked her head. "Rose." She said, and smiled.

"Yes."

She leaned forward and sniffed it, then beamed broadly. "Rose!" She exclaimed.

"Yes!" I said tearfully back.

She plucked the flower, tore off the thorns, and placed it in her hair. She walked to the basin, and examined herself in the reflection, striking lecherous poses as though practicing her seduction. Rose. Rose would be her name once more, but she would not be my Rose. The flower would be but the bate of innocence to lure her prey into her arms. She tied the stem around one of her horns, securing it there, then she looked out at the path from the arboretum to the city. She walked that path, then paused, and looked over her shoulder to the Great Forest. The smile she'd dawned faded. Her eyes glowed a slightly violet. She slowly turned, then stepped away from the city, away from civilization, away from language, laws, and safety to heed the whisper of the wildlands. She would not be a domesticated whore growing fat in a brothel. She would be a huntress, spectacular and deadly, wild and free, the terror and desire of any man or beast who was foolish enough to enter her domain. She entered the darkness of my canopy, and scampered into the bosom of the Great Forest. I wiped the tears from my eyes, and smiled. My daughter had returned to me.