frickin' bats!!! // plastics day 3.

"Yeah, a lot better." She glances up casually at Kiko, taking in the freshly drained creature that is hanging limp in the other girl's hand. She can smell that same scent again / can feel that same pull on the other end of the rope / but she only tightens the bandage around her chest, stitches the deep cut, moves on. Call her spoiled, but if she's going to satisfy her thirst, it certainly won't be a rat with wings that serves as the main course.

When she stands, she ignores the little cracks in her armor, the tears in her skin. There are moments when her entire body burns, just as raw and aching as her throat, and there are other moments when the wind blows cool and she can bury her thoughts beneath the chill. She stares at the cavern walls, at her bloodstained fingers, and all she can focus on is, how much longer until I have my crown? Even here, even in a hellscape, she asks herself the same question over and over. It's never been a matter of achieving it. She feels sure in that.

But she wonders who she'll become when she finally has it; wonders who exactly Elvena Fray will reveal herself to be when she no longer has something to aspire for. Despite the emptiness in her hands, and the risk that comes with going off on your own without protection, she watches Chichi dismiss herself from the situation and take off down the same trail they used to get here — and she stares, and she waits, and then finally.

When the blur of her fading image goes away, and Elvena is left with only the wanting, she chooses to follow.

"Kiko, Mer, how about we put the bats away and get a fire started? I'll be back." She starts down the path, glancing over her shoulder all at once impassively, mischievously, and knowingly. "But don't wait up."