Some Fall By Virtue

Chapter Nineteen: but everything that hurt

"Hardly," she muttered, resting her chin upon her knees as she felt those grey eyes boring into her so. "Pain is pain, and there is nothing joyful about it." The world will know pain, huh? the voice whispered, insidious as ever. You certainly entertained those sentiments, didn't you, dragon?

"Then what reason is there to inflict more upon yourself?" Glorfindel stood suddenly, and Sakura could only look determinedly away as he strode purposefully to her side. No doubt pulled by the magnetic connection soulmates had. He shouldn't have come closer otherwise, nor been as attached as he seemingly would. "The fact you look away rather than claim them accidents is far more telling than it ought to be." His hand sought her own, and Sakura couldn't bear to look at him. Truly, he was everything she wasn't. Everything she could never be. "The fact I heard your whisper last night..." His voice died away, long fingers curling around her dainty hand. It was so unlike how a dragon's was meant to be. "Will you not tell me, friend?"

Friend.

The word made her see red, finally, having been used far too much, and with far too greater a frequency as of late. The straw that broke the camel's back. She had been stuck around her natural enemy – elves – and they treated her nicely as they weren't meant to, and now they were calling her friend. It was too much. They were wrong.

Anger and fear burnt in her belly, and she wrenched her hand away, wrapping it back around herself alongside its companion. She didn't deserve to be called a friend. Not by him. Not by Noeneth. "We've known each other for a matter of weeks... and you expect me to tell you everything?" Her lips pulled back, baring her too sharp teeth. A dragon's fangs. "Why? Because we both are down on our luck with our soulmates? Because you think us kindred spirits?" A scoff escaped her before she could help it. "You know nothing."

"Perhaps that is due to the fact my dear new friend is so very tight-lipped..." Glorfindel replied, but Sakura could already hear the traces of hurt in his voice. Because you're a mean dragon... the voice purred, and you'll never be anything but. She wondered why he stuck around her, despite the hurt she had caused him time and time again. Her eyes narrowed, and she curled further into a ball – as much as she could truly get away with, sat up as she was. He was too close to her for comfort, and it made a war wage within her. Since a small part of her wanted nothing more than to bury herself in his presence, his warmth, and cry her heart out. The larger part of her knew she ought not to immerse herself in that warmth. It was just something which would be taken from her. Not that she deserved it in the first place.

Laughter, bitter and cold, escaped her then, part of her screaming internally at how very cold and antagonistic she was being to her soulmate. Just like a dragon, the voice murmured, the thought so very sickly sweet and all consuming. "So why do you call me a friend?"

"Friends come in many forms, say those who would jump between you and injury," he said, golden brows arching up ever so slightly.

Acrid green finally met soft, bright grey, and Sakura barely concealed the flinch. "Do you not think that perhaps I was just in it for the pain?" she asked, mocking and loathing all but dripping from her words like a sickly sweet honey. Like a horrid poison. The voice hummed in the back of her head. Yes, that's a better way to describe it so... Her stomach twisted, hands fisting in the sheets she lay atop as the voice in her head grew louder and louder. She wanted to place her hands over her ears and scream to be rid of the noise which was always so very right, and yet she didn't want to hear it. Not there. Not then.

"I believe you just said you take no pleasure in pain," Glorfindel remarked, and Sakura tore her gaze away. So very contradictory, the voice mumbled in glee. "So you would not have been motivated by that as such."