The Countdown

Watching him add to the fire, though seeming tedious, surely seemed like an attempt to gain control over his senses. Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop. No, she, she was the Devil’s workshop. The thurisaz rune on her back, between her shoulder blades, that had been burned into her delicate skin, began to burn again. It was as though He was reminding her that no matter what road she took, she had a debt to pay and he had one to collect. It was the first time she had felt pain from any type of heat in a long while, and it caused her to drop her eyes and bite her lip. "I have taken an oath to protect those that I can, help those that I can, and assist those that I can. If I let you go on your way, I would be an oathbreaker, and there is little worse in the world than being an oathbreaker." It was if his words dug at her gut; for the first time an overwhelming sense of guilt for her intentions yanked at her heart. How was it she was supposed to take this man’s life? Part of her hoped that the woman was a decent enough human being; maybe she could take a stab at her.

She herself had an oath that had been made. His words provoking thought, she roamed on the choice in which he used them. "Little worse in the world", she would undeniably make up that smaller portion. It never bothered her that she took the lives of the innocent. Thinking back to the bloodshed that had been at her hands, it still didn't bother her. The screams of a mother as she looked down at her babe, clinging a limp body to her chest, still provided her with a small sense of joy. Whom ever thought that people dead looked peaceful, clearly had never seen a mangled body hanging over a railing of a tall building. The individual in so much agony from the skin being ripped at, prodded at with bare hands providing an infection, that they spend their last moments attempting suicide to be rid of the pain. None of it bothered her. Celestia just truly, the thought seeming almost unbearable, did not want to hear an agonizing scream from this man.

Feeling his eyes land on her waist, the guilt was replaced by warmth that went wherever his gaze did. Swallowing hard, she leaned forward slightly in attempt to derail her desires.

No matter how much she would like to say the shakiness of her hands was due to hunger, it wasn’t. It was a side effect of his presence. “I can promise you that I won’t be able to eat this second piece, and I hate to have possibly wasted some of your reserves. ” Avoiding eye contact, she let her gaze fall on the tent, as if him being married would make this easier. Him being married wouldn’t stop her hands from roaming his body and possibly undressing him; It would just mean she didn’t have to attempt to kill him.

The feeling of his skin lightly kissing hers sent a rush of heat through her body, causing her to look down at the very spot of their temporary contact. Following his eyes to the time piece, her heart sank. How long would it be before this wench of a woman joined them? Before she had to scurry off- not my wife. A sense of relief and dread washed over her simultaneously. “How long until you switch watch?”