Chapter Text
There’s fire in your veins.
It flickers to life when she looks at you. When she catches your gaze from across a crowded room; or in the middle of a fight; or at the end of the day, the flames of your campfire throwing her exquisite features into stark relief. You wonder how it is that just her eyes on you makes everything twist and tease. How it leaves your thoughts thick and foggy; your limbs heavy with some strange, new, aching want.
You wonder how it is and why it is and when it started, and as you cast your thoughts back across all of your days together - one whole season now, nearly two; that thought alone makes you woozy with pride and wonder - you realize it must have started the moment you first laid eyes on her. Because, your heart hasn’t beat in steady time since you sat across from her in your mother’s kitchen and watched, transfixed, as her long fingers laced her boots and adjusted her knee guards. Watched as she stared you down - ice-blue eyes burning with an unspoken challenge - and warned you about making the likes of her mad.
She was so beautiful and powerful and arresting, and for a brief, maddening moment you wanted to know exactly what it would be like to have all of her ire - the blistering heat of her wrath and barely-controlled fury; the passionate fits of her pique - directed squarely at you. By the gods, just the thought of it made you itch; made you clench your thighs together; made you sneak away in the middle of the night to chase after her. Because of course you wanted her mad - you wanted her standing over you, imposing; you wanted her eyes locked on yours, unflinching; you wanted to see the pink stain on her skin as her blood coursed beneath it, untempered. You wanted to feel the way she made the air change around you, like lightning before a storm; wanted to be consumed by her tempest. To feel your pulse race; to feel alive.
She was like some mythic, untamed thing - seductress and man-slayer and unlikely hero - statuesque in her gleaming bronze armour and soft brown leather. It was like a fever dream, and of course - of course, you told yourself, of course - her eyes on you would make your palms slick with sweat; would tug at your belly; would leave your breath ragged if you let your return gaze linger too long. She was a siren, unchained from her rocky island prison and you were like any other unsuspecting fool caught up in the lure and the ruin of her song.
Of course of course of course.
Her power over others was a gift; a curse. The price one paid to be with her. But of course one day you’d find yourself immune.
Of course of course of course.
And so you followed her, enchanted. Because, what other choice did you have? An ordinary life as a farmer’s wife; a mother? Long days spent in the fields and then evenings by the hearth spinning wool? A babe on one breast and another on the way? A husband to answer to - in your home and in your life and in your bed? Toil and tedium to temper your spirit? Like your own mother, and hers before her, and so on down the line? No, no, you were not made for that life. The thought of it was like a cruel hand at your throat; squeezing; crushing. There was only ever one choice - you could perish, or you could save yourself.
Your bag was packed the moment she walked out of your door. Your fate was sealed.
Because she was the answer to a prayer you hadn’t realized you’d been on your knees asking. And once you’d found her, you wanted desperately to know what it was like to be her - confident and charismatic and commanding. Needed desperately to know the power of her magic. To feel it seeping into your bones; settling into the marrow there; touching every part of you as it coursed through your blood - as if you could somehow distill its secrets through association; as if it were something you could soak up in her presence.
She was everything impossible made possible. Wild and glorious and free. She could show you the world; teach you to slay monsters; give you a purpose. She could be your muse.
Of course you followed her.
And along the way, someone, somewhere must have read the secret desires of your heart.
(You want.)
There’s fire in your veins.
It courses through you when she’s close to you - single-minded and searing. Burns its way to the surface; leaves your skin feverish and flush when her body is near. She’s the furnace that keeps you warm at night; that’s always running hot; throwing off a delightful heat that dances gently across the distance between your bedrolls. She’s the smithy that stokes something deep inside of you; that raises your internal temperature to dangerous highs. You’ll never be cold with her by your side.
But you’ll never be sated either, because fire is insatiable, and yours for her is ravenous.
This is a new hunger; it’s confusing. It doesn’t quiet once you’ve had your fill; or make you sleepy with contentment; it doesn’t leave you satisfied. It’s raw and demanding, and it’s always just there, low in your belly, gnawing gnawing gnawing. But then, you’re still young; still growing; still finding your place in the world and by her side. Of course your appetite would change, too. It was foolish to think that it wouldn’t; that the spell she casts over you might even diminish. It’s been two winters, now, with her on the road; two winters and the pull she has over you has only gotten stronger.
Once, you thought it enough to be like her, now you want nothing more than to be near to her. To touch and to hold and to feel. It’s not entirely new - you’ve always liked having her close, that’s without question. Always liked the way she smells - a mix of sweat and soap and sunshine; always liked the surprising softness of her skin; the warmth in her silence; the comfort it brought. But then one day you awoke in her arms; her tears bathing your cheeks; your face pressed against her breast; and you could hear her heartbeat. It sounded like yours; like it was pounding out a message for your ears alone; one that said stay stay stay. And her arms felt like home.
Now you can’t imagine being anywhere other than close to her; so you find the ways.
You work in stealth and shadow. A full-on frontal assault is a fool's errand; doesn’t play to your strengths. At least not yet. Not in these early days; on these shaky, unsteady legs - made more unreliable still with only a pointed look from her, or the affectionate sigh of your name from her lips. No, you take by degrees; by a hair and a breath. Tease the flames; test your mettle; revel in the afterburn. Take a little more.
You walk a step closer on the road, so that your hands nearly brush against each other as you stroll along. Sit nearer still when you stop to rest, so that your thighs are separated only by a whisper, and you can feel the arc of delicious potential every time your muscles twitch. Lean in more than usual as she bends low to murmur a plan or some encouragement in your ear, so that her breath tickles the hair on your neck; coaxes a shiver from your flesh. Lay your blankets out so that their edges overlap and you’re tucked in under the same fur; so that you can feel the outline of her body in the pocket of air around you. You take and take and take, all these little moments, every bit of space. You are a thief, and you think she would be proud if she knew.
And then it occurs to you late one night - only after you’re too far committed to tactfully retreat - when you’re camped under an inky blanket of sky and she is deep in sleep, breathing slow and even, and so near to you that your fingers could trace the contours of her cheeks and nose and lips without even having to reach. It occurs to you then that she is too smart for your little game of subterfuge. You study her in the dim and the shadows, as she lays vulnerable at your side; her bare skin kissed by starlight; her face open and untroubled in slumber; and you feel the radiant dawn of realization break over the horizon of your quivering heart. Every inch of ground you thought you had taken without notice had been given freely instead. You’ve been feeding scraps to the flames of your desire when all of this time she has been quietly laying out a buffet for the taking.
The thought grabs hold of your heart so fiercely it brings tears to your eyes, and they prickle and sting with the same intensity as the tingling in your lips anytime you look at her face for too long. You bring a shaky hand to your mouth to catch the soft gasp you feel rattling at the back of your throat. One ragged exhale on the still night air and her eyes - bright and alert and discerning - will be open and on you in an instant, and this moment will be lost. So, you swallow your uneven breaths, and when you feel brave enough under the weight of this new understanding, you wet your lips and let your fingers brush across the soft curves of your mouth, imagining her lips under your touch; her fingers on your own. And then you wonder, as the tip of your tongue steals a gentle taste, what it would feel like to map the peaks and valleys of her mouth with your lips instead.
Your eyes slip closed and your body thrills at the prospect. She is never far from your thoughts, but this is the first time you’ve ever allowed yourself to think of her like this; her lips and yours and the ways they might fit together; the multitudes of possibilities. It’s terrifying and exhilarating and profound; and you like the way it makes you feel, even though your heart is beating so fast and hard against your chest it’s painful; like it might tear through your ribs and muscle, and gallop off into the night. It makes you want to hang on to her; throw your arms around her waist and hold on. You shift closer to her, and let yourself drift off to sleep; your fingers still on your lips; her name on your tongue. The stars overhead look on, and keep your secrets.
(You need.)
There’s fire in your veins.
Licks its way dangerously around your heart and mind and better judgement. Consumes you from the inside when she touches you. When her hand wraps around your arms as she pulls you against her and sets off a chain reaction that skips along your every nerve, until your body is singing and her name is the refrain. You would do anything she says if she says it with her hands. You’ve never felt this way before; never burned this hot; this heavy. No one has ever made you feel like this before. Not even your husband.
Oh gods, you had a husband.
A husband.
It feels like a dream now; like something you watched happen to someone else. A momentary fit of madness. But it wasn’t someone else. It was you. You had chosen. You were going to leave - you had left.
You. Had. Left.
Left this new and wondrous life behind. Left her behind. Her. For a husband, and all the things you swore you never wanted. All the things you had run from when you stole away in the night.
The memory of it - what almost was and what came to be - is a torment. It scrapes across your heart, stings with the biting rasp of a thousand barbed needles. Pulls and tugs and twists you into a torturous sort of knot; coils around your chest; tightening tightening tightening, until darkness dances on the edge of your vision and you’re left clawing some unseen hand. You had chosen and it wasn’t her.
You had chosen and by the gods it was the wrong choice. That is the truth of it - the sad and hard truth of it. You see that now, even if you couldn’t then, and knowing it makes you flush with shame; makes your brow sticky with beads of inescapable dread; fills your insides with the churning agony of regret. Because you had said 'yes'.
You had said 'yes', and you had left, and then he died, and you never had to face the consequences of choosing a life where you didn’t choose her. Instead you carry the truth of it with you. Remember the way it felt as the last vestiges of your girlhood disappeared on the shaky, heaving breaths of your new husband; the soft gasps as his strong, youthful body fell suddenly limp and heavy in your disbelieving arms, spent; the swift and inglorious end that came in one decisive thrust. It was all over before you ever really understood what was happening - the life slowly draining from him, and the relief racing through your heart at the realization that you had been released from your impossible obligation. And then she had put her hand on your shoulder in comfort, and the fire that ripped through you at her touch was a knife to your belly and your heart and your very soul. Agony. Ecstasy. The guilt that followed; the rage that knitted it all together.
What a terrible way to be spared a life of tepid desire; of unrealized potential; of unfulfilled passion.
But you had left because you thought you could fix him; that your love would be enough; that all fires burn with the same heat given enough time. Oh, but it was foolhardy to think you could ever escape the allure of her flames; that anyone could warm you so thoroughly; so elementally. Your husband was a good man. Sweet and mild like the soft, golden light that had painted the early autumn sky on the eve of your wedding, but try as he might he could never arouse in you anything more than a fleeting fancy - the gentle flutter of butterfly wings against your ribcage. Pleasant; warm; safe. But she was, is, more - the stampede of a hundred wild horses; the whole of the cosmos splashed across the milky sky; the hanging gardens of Babylon. Danger; wonder; beauty.
Just the thought of her stirs those same butterflies to life in your chest faster than any look or touch or kiss from him ever did. One look whips their delicate wings into a furious frenzy - a whirlwind that starts in your breast and tears through you, unrelenting. And one touch? One touch is a flashover. Heat so sudden and intense that every part of you is given over to spontaneous combustion. An inferno racing under your skin, through bones and sinew, consuming the parched underbelly of your ardour.
There was no comparing the two, and you knew it - despite the things you told yourself to quiet your unease - there was no comparison and you knew it even as you placed that floral crown atop your head, and spoke your vows beneath the temple arches, and kissed your dearest friend goodbye after it was done. Because you had felt the dark, heady pulse of want, and it had ruined you for anything that was simply pleasant and warm and safe.
You wanted passion in your blood; the taste of peril in your kisses; curves and swells and softness to fill your hungry, questing hands. Because you had tasted her; the truth of her; the life in her blood, and her heartbeat. You had sunk your teeth into her neck, and drank greedily. She was delectable. She tasted like desire. And even though you were feeding the monster inside of you, you were feeding a part of yourself too. You were drunk on her, and all these seasons later you’ve never sobered up.
Now a whole winter has come and gone since you lost your husband, since you nearly lost her too (two; three; four times still again), and you can’t hide away from the truth any longer. The truth about the fire that’s raged within you for years; the fire that she breathed into your veins; the fire that you told yourself was just the fancy of youth; the thrill of adventure; an echo of her own determination singing through you. You can’t hide from it any longer - not that you really want to.
Because you want to be hers and hers alone; you want to give what she won't take; you want to be her prey, tangled in her web; caught in the crosshairs of her passion. You’ve wanted it since the beginning; since she held court in your mother’s kitchen, perched on that rickety stool, all long bones and short answers, like some fucking giant the way she took up every inch of space around her, and with each precise, elegant movement stole all of the air from the room; from your unsuspecting lungs; and used it to fan the flame sparking to life in your blood. But now it’s spilled over into your chest and belly and limbs. Burns for all to see; blazing orange along the edges of your eyes, like watch fires roaring through the night.
She kissed you once - in your mind; in a dream; in the place that exists beyond life and death. She kissed you once in spirit and it scorched your mouth. You can still feel the blisters beneath your tongue when you wet your lips. You ache to feel that burn sweep across your tender flesh. The sear of her kiss on your throat and your breast and at the apex of your thighs. The delicious burn of her touch. She is the flint, and you are the tinder, and together you could make a glorious spark. You want to lose yourself in the flames. You want her to be the blaze that sends you heavenwards; a dazzling wave of heat and colour; a thousand tiny embers licking at the night sky.
You want to burn, and you’d build the pyre yourself, if you could. Lay your willing body amongst the cypress boughs and weep with joy at your rapturous, incendiary end.
(You smoulder.)
End of Act I.