starve the prophets — myrcella. & bastian.

She moved as moonlight would, all soft grace, unnerved ease and fluidity. It was strikingly different to Bastian’s own movements, which were mechanic, harsh, and robust: the march of a gladiator towards the fog of war.

When Myrcella’s forehead rested against his shoulder, instincts forced him to pat the back of her head, golden filaments brighter amongst the dark callouses of his fingers.

She seemed so bird-boned, so fragile, but he knew she was anything but that. He wished she would be anything but that.

Making a sharp intake of breath, Bastian willed himself free of this reverie, this hauntingly real dream, but their feverish heartbeats preceded and the justice building’s chambers did not morph back into Bastian’s own. They were here, but only Bastian could escape afterwards.

Her chaste kiss on the cheek swirled like the galaxy of a bruise would – something bigger than what it actually was, the ghost mark of a girl that was losing her tangibility. His heart leapt uneasily when eyes fell on the whitish skin below her earlobes, the color akin to a ghost’s flesh.

“I’ll be back,” The confidence in those words slowed Bastian’s rapid pulse to a gentle current. Yet “but,” made it race again, more vicious this time around like his heart was about to be trampled underfoot. “If I don’t make it,” He opened his mouth to intervene but Myrcella’s words made his own recoil. “Keep an eye out for everyone, okay? Uly's sweet but he's reckless.” She said, and Bastian scoffed. “Ulysses can take care of himself or die, for all I care.”

The Frays were legacies of each other, carbon-copied in a gold machine. One dead Fray would be traded by another more stronger and more charismatic one, with a smile that conjured silver parachutes from the arena’s sky. But the same concept did not apply to Myrcella Hudson.

“He might expose the group if you aren't careful. And Mal- just don't be an ass to him for the first little while, okay?” His breaths were torn to ribbons. The armor Bastian wore was faltering, becoming undone as he watched the rise and fall of breath in Myrcella’s smooth collarbones. She was quick, glorious, and a blur of silver – but. There was always a ‘but’, a ‘yet’, that filled Bastian’s heart to its blood-red brims with thick dread. But, a hunter is not familiar with war.

The ancient texts and reference books he’d stayed up countless nights reading whispered of the atrocities of war — and the tragedies of it. War was fickle and erratic; and the only things that ended wars were the abundance of the broken bodies, strewn across the battlefield, and luck. When Bastian’s eyes danced around the room, it did not see the green of four clovers or the yellow of wish coins.

Still, he held hope — and it felt like dangling his blood-red heart over an abyss, the dark of it threatening and ominous. “Yeah, I ain’t doing any of that,” He interjected. “Because, you are coming back, and because I cannot not be an ass to Mal.” The jest felt hollow and bleak, no matter the tone he’d said it in.

“Get your hands on a weapon quick, Myr.” Eyes descended to the curvatures of her fingers, toying with his shirt tail. The skin covering it was whitish, like clean ivory, and he reached out to hold them still. “And don’t hesitate to kill – no one else matters.”

It was a speech expected of him, Bastian Fray, heartless. Heartless because his heart was caught in between the intertwinement of their fingers, beating to a rhythm that had begun to shatter asunder.

“They’re all scared prey, and you have a hunter’s blood so put it to use.” After a few moments, he added. “I am scared, Myrcella, for you.”