[She cries out, stark and raw and involuntary, lets the pain wash through her. For a moment, in the white searing moment of it, she's almost floating, and the part of her that that is a coiled, reptilian, defensive thing, the part that sees the cracks in people and knows how to nudge or hammer them open, that part thinks, hisses, this is our realm, you are the anomaly - he might kill her but he might kill her anyway, and she could deliver it right, she imagines, not accounting for her helplessness, for the human-animal noise still in her throat. He told her once there was a time when it hardly mattered whether the Lady saved him or destroyed him, as long as the world was made right.
She could tell him he deserves that death, to stand down and offer his neck, that it is why She has left him to Anya. Every angel is terrifying. Every goddess carries death, on her neck, in her hand, behind her smile.
But Anya is not the Lady, and she can't do it. Not to him, not even this him, So she screams for the space of half a breath, shudders and fights not to jerk away, because if he doesn't release his hold, it will only hurt worse.]
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She could tell him he deserves that death, to stand down and offer his neck, that it is why She has left him to Anya. Every angel is terrifying. Every goddess carries death, on her neck, in her hand, behind her smile.
But Anya is not the Lady, and she can't do it. Not to him, not even this him, So she screams for the space of half a breath, shudders and fights not to jerk away, because if he doesn't release his hold, it will only hurt worse.]