The Sunspire For in his eye were stars that burned

brutal. 
she was, was she not? creature crafted of ire and shadow, striking again and again with ruthless precision until positions reversed, and her father lay in the dirt. blood pooled, and he spoke. the words twisted, registered someplace, and yet she did not stop, stalking near until her fangs drifted poised over his throat, gaze revealing the startling and sudden depth of her apathy. hot breath mixed with blood as she fell still, gaze boring into his, at once burning and empty. 

could she kill him? she was very much capable, logically, of driving her fangs downward and tearing once more, pulling up and to the left and severing her father's hold on life. the burning intent of her cold fury too would allow her to finish quickly what she found herself standing on the precipice of, allow the emotion to carry her through. she summarized then that she could, and at the moment above him, she felt some semblance of righteousness, of peace. 

his last words swirled in the pit of apathy that yawned at the edges of her mind, and finally, she withdrew, forcing the cold down and away, to lurk beneath her skin and burn in her bones. she would wonder, not at what she'd done, but what would have happened, should she have killed him swiftly. "then die." she turned then, considering waiting, watching, and finding that without the cold of her anger, so much like the burn of that river so long ago, she felt merely hollow. 

and so she left him there, forcibly pulling at the parts of her mind that offer rationality and logic as she melted back into the mountainside,