*The following piece contains a brief description of self-harm. If this subject matter is something that would trigger you or make you feel uncomfortable, I advise you to proceed no further.*
Particles of dust floated through the haze of a golden glow like a slow, hypnotic snow drift. The orange blaze of a once roaring fire had since disintegrated, leaving little but the flickers of dying embers in the grate and resembling much more like the reflective eyes of creatures in the wilderness, rather than the ash of what had since taken place.
Ashaia shifted delicately beneath the white linen sheets, the familiar scent of him intermingling with the lavender was a nostalgic moment of a time before the inescapable chapter of several years away from each other. The tingling sensation of his touch still conjured forth the goosebumps upon her skin and, as she moved in a serene, undisturbed motion to sit upright, Dagramir lay there, chest down and sleeping. He did not even stir as Ashaia sat there observing him, green eyes roaming the particular contours of the muscles in his back, lifting and falling ever so slightly with each breath. The dark curls of his hair splayed out as though they had been purposefully positioned that way to appear so perfect, partly obscuring his face and briefly reminding her of where exactly Arthur had obtained his.
For a moment, she considered leaning over to touch him, to ghost the fingertips and the ends of her fingernails across his skin, yet she refrained and left him be. She knew that he would have accepted her leaving so abruptly in the middle of the night, as she was one to do but the idea of the discussion that would come before it, was one she was keen to avoid.
She stared through the darkness, the grainy, speckling blackness of the shadows awakening to the much darker parts of her mind as she remained there, thinking. It was astonishing how easily the mind could wander in the small hours of the night, or the morning, depending on how one wanted to consider it.
"Have you never considered how many women are disappointed or otherwise wrenching their hearts out knowing that he has a son with you?" said a voice from the shadowed left corner of the room. It spoke in the tone of an old friend from years ago, yet it was faceless with the intent to cut deep.
"How he has pledged his allegiance to you and you alone. That he burns brightly for your soul once more? You and I both know that you are not so naive. You know, somewhere deep down in that dark abyss that he didn't wait for you. Not really. There is always a spark with someone else, a woman he deeply misses - perhaps more than you."
Ashaia had returned to gazing at him, her face emotionless through the dark gloom. He was still just laying there, obliviously sleeping. It stung to consider that the voice was right. How was she to know if he had slunk away to meet with faces of old that had once garnered his undivided attention?
The huntress, amongst others, had been involved in his string of casual dalliances. How was she to know if he did not maintain connections with these people? Had there been more? Newer subjects of his affection?
"Why would he settle for an apple that is bruised when there are so many polished ones for the taking?"
This was true. Ashaia bore many bruises. Physically, emotionally. Her body was patterned in the marks of birth and the scares of self-infliction. She knew that if she had asked, he would have gladly graced his fingers along the lines of her scars, pressed his lips softly to the marks left behind by his own son. She was a damaged soul with a bandaged heart, that much was correct. She was older and had already married once before. She was a spoiled fruit, let alone a bruised one.
"Everything he promises. It's just empty words..." The utterance circled around her ears in nothing but a whisper.
Was that the case? Ashaia had seen the longing in his cerulean eyes to be near her, the relief on his face to be embraced by her again. She had given him much, her body included as she pressed the linen sheets to her bare, tattooed chest. He had marked her very skin: figuratively and literally. How could the voice come to this conclusion? Her eyes drifted to the corner of the room briefly, where the source of the voice was emanating from.
It was wrong.
Surely, it was wrong. These girls were young and misguided. The pretty thing at the bar who scowled at the mention of their son's name. The huntress of yore, who's heart belonged to the wilds and the canopies of leaves overhead, allowing nothing but the spots of sunlight to break through and create a mosaic of stunning, emerald jewels to dazzle against porcelain skin. She was smarter than this. Smarter than to pine after a man who was not only older but clearly besotted with the likes of the Raven.
She among many, many more would pine.
What a waste of energy, Ashaia thought. What a waste of tears and passion and emotion. Every facet that should have been projected unto someone who would reciprocate it. A true waste of their studious, intelligent minds. These women were stronger than the likes of Dagramir's charm.
What was it about him that was so appealing to everyone else? Had the Viper given these women his affection under the blind eye of the Raven? Did his faithfulness know a boundary now? And did he carelessly cross it without a regard for the mother of his son?
Ashaia was the villain in this scenario. From the perspectives of these women, she was the problem. Not Dagramir. Not the man with the notches on his belt. Ashaia, the one who nobody had vouched for. The one who had barely survived past her twenty-third birthday. The one who had struggled through a young pregnancy, cried under the feeling of her own sharpened fingernails digging through the underside of her forearms, allowing the blood to drip like long, red ribbons along the length of her fingers and slipping off the ends.
"Does it never occur to you that at the sheer fall of a raindrop, you could become the villain they say you are? And make a truly compelling one at that."
In times like these, the answer was not to pit these women against each other, or against herself, but to build them up and stand as one. Dagramir's eye may have wandered, yes, but Ashaia's trust was nestled within him. And as for these nameless, pining women, they were better than this - for that she knew.
They were cleverer than this.
She eventually rose from the bed and dressed in silence, collecting the rumples of her clothes from the ground, all the while chancing glances back at Dagramir. She pulled on her boots at his bedside, the buckle fastenings reaching the mid-section of her thighs. For another moment, she almost touched him, but the urge came and went as she repressed it.
She drew away from the bed, pulling on her traveling gloves lastly.
A new life was beginning now. There was a future on the horizon for both she and him and the women who wanted to insert themselves into that equilibrium came at the risk of separating a man from his family. And for what? For a night of lust or even love? He had much to spare if he truly wanted to. For him to supply them with an unwed pregnancy in the same fashion as Ashaia? For the pattern to happen again?
Dagramir had made his bed beneath the wing of the Raven and he intended to lie in it.
