queensguard ♞ eulalie, day 2

There is no blood to clean from her blade.

Only the dust of stone, a long scratch that curves across the metal where she cleaved the lone knight's head off his shoulders. The woods are dark and quiet as night unfolds around her, and Eulalie finds herself standing in the distance away from the base camp her alliance set up on the first night. It'll be their first time actually making use of it, no longer feeling the urge to return to the throne room and rest there. Her eyes lift from her weapon and linger on the horizon.

She feels uncertain, but capable. Two days in, and she's yet to claim a life. There's a restlessness in her, a coiled serpent lying in wait to strike. If she can sever rock, surely she will be able to handle flesh and bone. And yet. She has no solid proof that she can be a murderer. Umber evaded her on the first night of hunting, and she hasn't stumbled upon him again. She's drawn blood from a stranger, but only a shallow scratch.

As she busies herself with cleaning the blade, she curls her fingers around the curve of steel, tightening her grip until a swell of blood breaks through the skin and a shallow stream of blood begins to trickle down her palm. It stains the axe, a flush of red on its surface.

"Tomorrow," she says to the witching hour and no one else, "tomorrow I become a killer."

This is a promise she will not allow herself to break.