2/24/2025, 8:19 PM
Gladiator damn near melted beneath the heat of Zora's easy, thoughtless affections. The power was a thrill she never got sick of feeling, but the trust was a sobering and precious thing that Zora hardly knew what to do with.
She wouldn't break it.
She betrayed so easily, she lied like breathing, but this was one bond she was never going to twist into a noose with which to strangle them both.
She knew it went against her nature. Zora had crafted herself into a cursed queen, a serpent and a death-blossom since her youth, but she knew she wanted to make space in herself for something different. Even if it was awkward sometimes and stung a little, she was willing to fight for it. She knew Gladiator would do the same. They'd already died to prove it.
She was mulling over how to respond when Dia moved. Zora's expression was soft, open - nothing left to hide behind, she'd tried all her masks and Dia had enjoyed each and asked for another. Zora had worried there was nothing of herself beneath all the falsehoods she wore, but she knew now this fondness in her heart, this love at her very center, was truer to herself than anything else.
Zora didn't stop them, letting Dia's tongue sweep across those awful scars, half of a matching pair.
It felt odd. A little numb, a little oversensitive, and the fur split strangely around the gnarled flesh. But Zora didn't flinch, and didn't see her death play out in Technicolor around her.
She wished she was brave enough to ask for Dia to mark her there, right on top of the already-healed marks - to leave a physical sign of who Zora wanted written over the top of the evidence of her death.
She could only offer a sultry gaze, silver and blue sizzling hot as she searched for Dia's own.
