Cora

Call You Home

AN: Citrus fruits ahead. ;)

Cora sat in the metal tub back in their room with her arms wrapped tightly around her legs, resting her cheek on her knees as she stared at the wall. A month of relative peace had passed since the incident in the dungeons with the Demon Lord and time felt as if it as flying past her, leaving her nothing to do but reach for it with fleeting fingers.

Warmth spread across her back as Izroul rubbed the fleece across her spine, making soothing noises as he went. They had never talked about what happened down there, though she knew he heard her thinking about it. Obsessing over it, really.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Izroul's voice cut through her musings and she stiffened. DID she want to talk about it?

There would be a time, she knew, for examining all that had happened to her closely. There would come a reckoning for her, a day when the full brunt of the many traumas she had suffered would crush her beneath them and refuse to be ignored any longer. If she lived that long, the things she had seen and done and that had been done to her were going to eat her alive.

But not today.

"No, Izroul," Cora said firmly, turning her face towards him so he could see the seriousness of her gaze.

His eyes closed momentarily in defeat before he nodded to her. She thought the matter closed, but he cleared his throat and met her gaze once more.

"I have some things I need to say about it, Cora. For me," he murmured quietly. "Will you listen? Can you?"

Cora took a moment to consider. Could she hear what he needed to say, even if she wasn't ready to discuss her part? It might be painful, it might make her remember things she'd rather not, but she really wanted to give her demon everything he needed that she was capable of providing. A few minutes passed before she gave him a tentative nod.

"I'm sorry," Izroul began quietly. "I wish that I could tell you something like this would never happen again. I would- I would give anything for that to be true."

He shifted his eyes to gaze longingly at the curls that lay at the base of her neck. "But I can't tell you that," he muttered bitterly. "He's the cruelest of demons, and as long as we are here, we'll never truly be safe."

The cloth ran between Cora's shoulder blades and she shivered at the sensation of warm water dripping down her spine.

"When that dagger was to my throat, for the first time in my life, I wanted so badly to fight my father," Izroul continued slowly. "Everything he's done to me, done to my mother, and yet... I've always wanted his approval. His love. That day, though, I wanted to rage and rip and save you from what he had planned, even if it resulted in my death. I wanted-"

Cora watched as his eyes closed once more, pain and resignation flitting across his expression.

"But if I let him kill me, you'd be alone. He'd have put you in the Harem and it wouldn't have been once, but many, many times that you suffered at his hands."

When Izroul's eyes opened once more, she startled at the look of fierce determination he sent in her direction. He leaned forward and pressed a tender kiss to her bare shoulder before returning his attention to slowly rubbing the fabric over her back.

"I swear to you, I will not give up," he said firmly. "I will find a way to make you safe again. That means getting you out of the demon plane. If you want, I- I will go with you. Even if that means leaving everyone, leaving my brothers, my mother... You will be safe again. I promise."

Cora slowly shook her head, untangling her arms from her knees and resting a hand on his cheek. "You would leave all the people here that you love, just to be with me?" She asked incredulously.