"the truth," she says simply. maybe he'll recognize that she's biding time, working up the nerve to tell him about all the way she's fallen from grace. it will be easy when she begins talking. just like it was with king.
they walk together across that frozen tundra. when they come upon their first body, she looks up and past it, at the formless lumps that dot the frigid landscape. her teeth ache from the cold and from the straining of her muscles. every nerve is on red alert; cortisol courses steadily through her body.
"i was trapped in this realm before it was brought here," she starts and then she starts at the beginning.
the day of his funeral. when her body was an alien thing with emotions she couldn't process and so she simply didn't. when she dined with their mutual friend and over fine wine and food, discussed this hellbound region's future.
the thereafter, her furious, desperate cry for help. his gift.
nature's madness. here is where she falters. here is where her mouth stays, throat cracked from talking and from the stinging chill in the air. her brows furrow.
"the memories are still...hazy. i was different. parts of me shut down, even more than before. i only wanted two things: to protect him, and to drink from him." she shivers.
endless days spent in training rooms, every minute of every hour putting her body in service to his needs. save, oddly enough, what he found himself insatiably hunting for at the time.
that she could never give him.
her frayed mind, grasping at pink tendrils, hungering for more. and here is where the thin line of her mouth quirks, where she talks about
KING WAYLAND beating her head hard enough to, quite literally, knock some sense into her.
the back and forth. the withdrawals. the realizations. the fragmented mania. the last call to action. her exile in kyurem's realm.
her other self,
artemis, the black-scaled rayquaza's avatar. that they'd been looking for her. and at
they, her mouth twists.
"i found you. but it wasn't you. it was her you." she chuckles.
"in another life, we did end up together. and we were happy. they were happy." until her sacrifice; until she pulled the last of the fairy's poison from her veins and he held her as she died in his arms. the last thing she knew was his touch.
like freya should have done for him, in this life.
she does not share her time on the beach with his other self. nor does she share the details of her reuniting with king. she skirts around it, telling him she had nowhere else to go and he took her in, and he protected her, and still protects her now.
"fernando isn't our only enemy." with curled fists, she recounts
MATIAS SILPH's transgressions. his sins. and her own attempt on his life. and when she is finished, she exhales and searches his face, deathly afraid of what she might find.
her eyes are glassy, voice cracking as she whispers,
"i'm so sorry."