The Dying Moon ( Feyd Rautha )

Chapter 9

// thank you for reading and I apologize for the slow pacing. There was a lot of world-building that had to happen. From here it will pick up a lot. Love u 🤍

Hawk dreamed that a boulder the size of the moon had fallen atop her forearm. The weight desecrated bone, fired synapse and beaded sweat on her brow.
Stone chipped and crumbled from the beat of an axe against the weight. It all swam together in perfect, vivid synchronicity. The sound of unyielding groans, exhaustion and the screams of a boy that was not yet a man.

The longer she languished beneath the boulder, the harder it was to decipher when the dream had started. If it were even a dream at all, or a memory plucked from the recesses of her psyche and played out in excruciating detail. There was a part of her that had been stuck under a stone for as long as she could remember. The ache soared with every passing moment, and the will to just gnaw the limb off rose.

"I'm not strong enough," Eidan relented, leaning over her broken body. His raven curls swept with the light wind, unkempt and soft.

Hawk hadn't remembered tracing the lines of his face in her mind with such attention to the finer bits. Yet, they splayed out before her. A strong jawline, wild, wicked eyes and a constellation of freckles that spattered about his regal nose.

"You will be," she said, unsure of why. The tone of her voice was garbled and masculinized, wholly unfamiliar as it crept upon the cavern walls.

And then something brushed against Hawk's chin, she was not one for physical affection so the jolt of his touch sent trills down her spine. It was a lifeline tethered to a sinking ship, a rope that pulled a comet from the sky. Hawk found that her trapped arm was gaining movement again. Blood rushed to her fingers and allowed them to curl.

"High General," the knock at the chamber door scrambled Hawk back into her own body.
Through the hulking windows, dawn had yet to creep upon the landscape. The pitch blackness blurred vision and crept shadows across the wall.

Hawk clutched at the short sword that sat at her side table and cast the sheets aside. The Moritani general, Oliver, stood in the threshold of the door and eyed her up and down. The knobs on his full military dress uniform glinted in the candelabras that adorned the hall. His gaze fell to the sword in her grip and then to the scattered remnants of armor about the floor.

"What is it?" She asked, "has something happened?"

Oliver opened his mouth, but no words fell. He teetered on his heels. No doubt, attempting to compose bad news in a lighthearted way.

"Spit it out," she ordered. Someone had died, or was very near to it. The shock and confusion that overtook Oliver's irises was enough proof of that. Or, the moon had finally fallen from it's hold in the sky and that is why the dawn had get to burn across the mountains.

"Your men asked me to retrieve you," he said, "I will let them explain."

With that, Hawk slammed the door and wiped sleep from her eyes. Her movement's hastened with every bit of armor she picked up from the floor. Her fingers twitched while tying the straps and eventually she gave up. A waist plate and an under-gown would have to do.