#eremiyah bishop vs katarina dark bishop has some good potential to think about but my brain is fried scrambled and thirdcookingmethod

[ephemeralove]

lifetaker

A scar remains long after the wound is gone. The mottled flesh on Katarina’s palm looks even fiercer beneath the firelight, and lingers with her like a dark memory, or the whisper of learned instincts in the back of her mind, quiet and yet much more alive than the one who carved them into her. 

She supposes she must have always had an aptitude for magic, for it was certainly not her potential that had drawn Lady Eremiyah to her. What it was instead, she would never know; all that remained with her, in the end, was the memory of discerning eyes peering down at her from their throne of lashes, so delicate and yet so damnably sharp. 

(“Repeat after me,” Lady Eremiyah had said. Her hand laid atop Reese’s, long and chilly digits pinning a child’s much softer palms to the worn pages of a book. Where once Reese’s heart had skipped many a beat over the gift of warmth and the grace of her charity, Katarina recalled the faint yet suffocating pressure atop her fingers. And she had repeated after her savior, so many times that she had lost herself in the fire. Lady Eremiyah never smiled at her.)

Wisps of flame glide smoothly over the back of her hand, slithering as a snake would along scarred skin – but, absent its bite, there is only the faint brush and comfort of its warmth. A viper bereft of its fangs could be pretty, but the turn of the heel of her palm laid bare the truth of things: she had chosen to keep her fangs; the finesse with which the serpentine cinder dances for her now belies the intent both cruel and clumsy that lays beneath the patterns carved in fire. 

As ugly as the twist of Lady Eremiyah’s mouth, watching the way magic sang for her pretty little puppet, her own as pure as the innocence she would soon grind ‘neath her heel. Yes, just as pure… and just as frail. 

Now she is dead and buried, and fire still laughs and sings for Katarina as it had for Reese – only now, night and thunder join their voices to the chorus, and her stomach lurches. It burbles with laughter and nausea in equal parts, for pride is a difficult thing on an empty stomach, and Katarina has not tasted it many times before. But this is it, isn’t it? Pride. Lady– …Eremiyah might have taught her how to take a life, yet now the wretched fool she cast aside outlives her, and in spells learned and writ in blood, she has found a way to see life for what it is: beautiful, and worthy of protection. (Hers, too.) She has found someone who will see her magic dance, and smile. 

An infant flame drops from between pinched fingertips, bursting like a flower in bloom over the parcel laid atop her bed. Neither it nor the dark bishop’s garb inside are tainted with the touch of ash, for Katarina does not need to burn her past to move beyond it. It is her weapon; it is what delivered her unto the present, and still yet unto the future. Most importantly, it is not her– not Katarina, not the version of her she has made for herself– to destroy so wantonly.

(...That, and she does not wish to incur any fees.)

The fire flickers harmlessly out, and a smile tugs her lips. Perhaps it is a little bit childish, but she looks forward to showing them both her new tricks.