Freedom

[jawburn_steel]

Freedom

 

Ara spun at the sound, batting aside her opponent's sword on instinct, all her focus across the arena to where Nira staggered under a blow, clutching her abdomen with one hand, her enemy sneering in triumph. Ara's sight narrowed around the bright splash of red between her sister-soul's fingers, and her own blood roared in her ears.

She dispatched her opponent in a heartbeat, forgetting the show, forgetting all the unspoken rules of the arena. They didn't matter. Not now. In moments, she was racing across the sand, watching Nira strike her own opponent in the throat, the blow she saved for when she had no time or no caring left for the fight. Ara didn't particularly care, ignoring the body as it fell, her entire focus on her lover as she sank to her knees, the blood bright under her hand.

Ara caught her as she bowed forward, a brutal impact of arms and blood and scent, a howl of agony in her heart as she heard Nira's gasp of pain, her tiny huff of laughter. She crooned on instinct, laying Nira back, settling her in the sand as gently as she knew how. The wound glistened at her, a low gash across Nira's abdomen, a leering mouth torn in her sister's flesh. But it was only a gash, relatively shallow, not a stab wound. Terrible and terrifying as it was, it wasn't very serious. That was the only thought that prevented her from screaming with rage and pain.

"Ara-love," Nira murmured, smiling up at her. "Just a little tear. Just a little thing."

She smiled at her, her hands catching and holding Nira's for a moment before pressing down on the wound, holding back the blood as best she could. The healers were on their way, she knew. They had to be. She couldn't hear, though, couldn't look up and around, to search, to examine the crowd, to see the judgement of the Foreman. She didn't care about any of it, only about the blood that trickled through her clutching fingers.

"No more," Nira whispered, suddenly, and Ara looked up from the dark smile of the wound to the glittering seriousness of her lover's eyes. "No more," Nira repeated, intent rising through her eyes, dark and vicious and calm. Ara felt her head tilt, felt herself being drawn in, the meaning coming to her instinctively, and before she could think she found herself smiling, a proud, vicious grin.

"Yes?" she asked, fierce and glowing. Nira grinned at her, lips pulled back part in agony, part in victory, and nodded. As the healers rushed in around them, took Nira from Ara's grasp, forcibly pulled her hands away, she kept her eyes only on those of her sister-soul, only on the laughing determination in Nira's eyes, and felt her blood heat and rush inside her.

No more. Never again. Not one more wound in this slave's arena. Not one more drop of blood for a crowd's amusement. They had given years, blood and life to this arena, and loved ever rich and crystalline moment of it. But it was time now to take for themselves, time to run for heaven's gates through all the wild world.

She stood, watching Nira be carried away, her bloody fist raised instinctively, her eyes moving to the Foreman's box, to the friend who sat there, who had wanted them to leave long since. She met Slate's eyes and nodded once. Then, as the arena grew silent, she threw her head back and crowed in victory, in passion, in warning. No more. Never again.

Tomorrow the blood spilled would not be theirs, but that of anyone who tried to keep them here, tried to keep them slaves. She smiled, crimson and ripe and destructive. They were not slaves. They were goddesses.

And tomorrow, they would be free.