Cervato - Girl On Fire (Part 1 of Cervato's Saga)

Compromise

"There's no logical reasoning in loving me. I am filled with imperfections. Selfishness. Jealousy. Loving me will only bring you ruin and pain. Physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Inside, my soul is screaming at me to run. To leap from the ledge of Life and fall headfirst into the next journey where I can never return from."

"And you just think we'd welcome you here with open arms?" The smooth tenor voice is mellow, lazy, and bears a slight hint of humor. Cervato brought her eyes up to look into the mirror. After the rescue from that dreaded Mantle stronghold, they had returned from the battlefield of Lake Doric to the Grotto. To recover. Kensa and herself had nearly been killed and overwhelmed by the soldiers. In just her lingerie, one could see all the small scars that mark up along the entirety of her form that have faded with time. Bruises in bloom,like watercolors upon a canvas, painted upon her torso.

Alone in her room, she stares into the mirror. The reflection in it's surface shows him looming over her shoulder. That thin and spindly frame hunched over slightly as he stands a good head taller than her, a cigarette touched between his lips, unlit. There's anger in his eyes yet it is twisted with some haunting humor still within them. "Red, you're going to make my sacrifice worthless if you die now." Rhett's voice sounds again inside her mind. Two dark red stains are visible along his chest, where he had been punctured by the bloody tendrils of Artemis's dark necromancy. Had it really been a year since then?

The woman's eyes fall to the small scar that lingers adjacent between her hips and along her abdomen, brushing her fingertips across it only brings her to grimace despite not feeling any pain.

"If you die now, you're giving up. You realize that, yeah?" He insists, fiddling with the unlit cigarette with dissatisfaction. "You think you dying will mean anything though? They'll mourn you, sure. Some will hate you for it. But then you're just going to be forgotten all over again while they move on. It's what people do, Cervato. Except for you, apparently."

Rhett's form disappears as she Cervato shakes her head. When her sienna hues return to her reflection, they dilate suddenly. Deronjur's terrible smile and haunting golden eyes now replace her former colleague with the Shining Blade with the monster that had stolen her child's life. Despite being unable to feel him, she watches as he wraps his arms around her shoulders, chin upon her bare shoulder as he reveals that wicked smile once more.

"You said you were going to save me, Cer. Are you going to break your promise again?" That confident condescending tone rings in her ears. Red fingertips brush along the small scar on her throat, before wrapping themselves properly about it as if wishing to choke her. Still his golden eyes do not fall from holding her own. "Or do you just want me to kill you so your pitiful existence can finally end? That would make me so very happy." He coos, lips brushing against her raven tresses.

Cervato bites her lower lip hard while her body trembles before the bedroom mirror. The pain causes her mind's illusion of Deronjur to fade away. However in the far corner she can see Saromire seated on her loveseat far behind her, face slightly blurred through her tears as she stares. The woman denies herself the immediate ache and desire to look over her shoulder. He's not real. None of them are.

Suddenly the room is terribly crowded behind her. Ghosts. All of them. Of her past. All looking into that mirror as they haunt the woman. A new one has joined them though. Atreyu. It's been half a Season since she's seen him. His presence disturbs her the most. Did the vision mean he was dead? Or he was suffering? Or had he always been suffering? Her palms run along the glass, distorting it's surface and all of them have disappeared.

Who did she want to save her?

There were many who crossed her thoughts. Each with their own significance and value in her mind. Yet only one solidified themselves in her very soul.

Quickly, she dressed, forgoing the visit to the medical facility as was suggested, she left the Grotto, walking out into the chilled air of Queensdale to begin her journey. The stars would light her path. The moonlight would be her companion. She would walk till Sunrise just to find them.