Ankyra Sound [m] burn it down

in that hour, ephraim would be the first and only.

his worthiness. sobeille considered the whole of him. the handsome sheen of blood on his shoulder; his cleverness; the manner he’d fought. they shared a kinship of savagery; the blood coursing her veins fed ephraim's heart, too.

in this hour, his redemption. all of the past was a running river that lead to its eventual conclusion here in the grotto. his past had to happen exactly as it did, for him to stand here in this moment.

his salvation. what weight did the past carry with it, if the outcome was always this? he moved sobeille with his savagery, and in turn moved within her. a rising sensation of claustrophobia took sobeille his weight pressed upon her; his grip alien and alarming. enraged by this invasion of self, something ugly sparked to life in sobeille. as the seconds passed, that terrifying feeling of losing control refused to abate.

his end.

the grotto seemed to come to life around them. flickering blue light playfully bounced along his pained face, illuminating the edge of his spine and jut of his shoulders. she saw him differently under the dancing light: the face slender and bearing resemblance to val's.

gathering the flimsy remains of her own energy, sobeille advanced. with little warning, she seized the back of his neck and wedged her teeth into his spine.

a calm invaded the ambusher as she held ephraim's flogging body between her teeth and shook,
and shook,
and shook until his flesh sheared beneath her teeth and his limbs gradually stilled, never to run again. until the feeling of being violated passed, until the anger ebbed away to pure and simple exhaustion.

spent entire, sobeille glanced at ephraim's blood. the warmth of it pooled at her feet, a sinister gleam of blue running its length as it coursed down in black rivulets towards the small moon-pool in the grotto's center.

for a time she watched reunion of blood and sea, mesmerized by the glimmering blue that flared each time a forbiddingly red droplet hit the moonpool's surface. sobeille used the very last of her reserves to drag his body to the pool and dump it; unaware that now she joined mother and son, first in birth, and now in death.

his legacy.

she who had always been alone now carried ephraim within her.