Myla hated it. Hated this. Hated everything.

Her rage was snuffed out so quickly that all it did was send her thoughts buzzing. It sent her into a silent cage that made her sick to her stomach. It made her grasp her neck at times as if the heavy weight had returned after so many years… sometimes it was a deafening silence. So she had her own plan. Feeding into the feelings, as she always did, but everything was buzzing. It was exhausting as she navigated a whole new battlefield. Or at least… that’s how she saw it.

Sleeping… well it rarely seemed to help now. She felt too vulnerable. Too exposed. Even if they weren’t within the same room, even if Hiram wasn’t exactly there in that moment. She laid on her stomach, face turned on top of a pillow as she stared at the window, not really seeing anything but the darkness of the world outside. ‘Be free, but not too free. Be a queen, but the wind shifts direction and now be nothing. Do what you want, unless it’s not what I told you. Reform. Reform. Reform.’ Her eyes were growing heavy with that thought when the door creaked open and her hand slowly flexing as that chaotic buzz started up in her again. “Get out.” She said it lowly, half muffled by the pillows and sheets.

Honora did not.

She closed the door behind her slowly, as if not wanting to startle a sleeping tiger. When the door was closed, she turned to Myla, tucking her hands in front of her.

“You know why I can’t.” Because she couldn’t. Honora was bound to Hiram’s wishes; to not fulfill them was to pay the penalty of death. Myla’s bindings were different but were there are all the same. Hiram was her blood. And that was a lifetime sentence she’d never be free from.

A snarl left her as she shoved herself up from the bed, throwing herself heavily into the feeling. “And since when did you start listening to an Eldouir, canary?” She challenged loudly. She hated Hiram most in that moment. Her hazel eyes blazing in that very moment as she stared across at Honora. “Find someone else, let me rest from your constant leeching,” Though her tone suggested that she knew the blonde would do no such thing.

“Since he saved me.”

The words left Honora’s lips before she had time to think about them. It wasn’t affection for Hiram based on what he’d done. It was a practical exchange. A deal with the devil. When Myla pushed herself up, Honora would reach with her mind with all the force she could muster. If successful, Honora would drop into Myla’s mind.

“It’s better if you don’t fight.”

Saved her?

Bitterness formed in Myla and expelled from her in a laugh that held no humor. “No, canary… he didn’t save you,” she spat the word bitterly as she moved to kneel on the bed and then plop her ass right down, hands fisting the sheets in front of her. “He caged you in a golden cage. One that looks pretty, but offer no freedom.” She felt Honora in her mind, and she heaved herself into the presence heavily, even if she couldn’t block her completely out, she hoped to jumble her enough to make her uncomfortable against her might… her stubbornness.

“Get out,” not the room. But her head. Her voice low and dangerous. “My power isn’t the only thing deadly about me, calm or not.” She threatened. “I have no use for you dead.” Yet. That word went unsaid. She didn’t need her dead because that would secure Elena’s fate. Apparently… Myla had a weak spot that was currently unguarded in many ways.

Myla was as powerful of a mind as she’d ever handled. To hold it was like trying to close your fists around lightning. Honora pushed back, closing Myla off to the world as the Eldouir would fall limp onto the mattress, dropping her and Honora's consciousnesses together in blackness, Myla would be able to speak, but only with her thoughts as she grappled with Honora on her own battlefield—that of the mind.

“I’ll free you from your cage if you free me from mine.” Honora dragged Myla’s mind closer with brute force, sinking her fingers into her memories.

“I’ll free you.” Honora then would go to work. It wasn’t loyalty for Hiram that Honora forced into her mind. It was for herself.

It would all be beautiful. Warm as sunshine, sweet as honey. Love, affection, tenderness—all wrapped up in an ecstasy that was, hopefully, too tempting to resist.

This was different from the other forms of training she had been forced to go through. Separated from the other Eldouir’s. But Myla was no simpleton. As Honora plunged them into darkness, her power surged, energy seeking, finding the grips on her as warmth suddenly sparked.

Myla jerked away from the comfort. She had never known that true comfort, perhaps only brief glimpses of… love? Her love was raging, it was bitter, possessive, demanding, consuming. Her love was not soft, it was not warmth, it was not patient.

At first she didn’t respond, not as a dangerous game started to swirl, as that chaotic energy was surging for Honora’s comfort. The unnatural feeling. “You want my help?” she hissed, did it even work this way? “How?” not why, but how and when.

Myla’s power both weakened and fed her. Seizing its strength added force and depth to the beautiful attachment that was consuming Myla the way creeping vines of sweet flowers twist and choke the rest of the plants in a garden. Honora’s gift was not one that could be seen, but it was power all the same—now not one of darkness but of light.

“I need you, Myla,” Honora’s voice would be a musical plea as it invaded Myla’s senses, “I need you to protect me. From him.” Honora then thrust a different kaleidoscope of images before Myla. Of Hiram, killing Honora in a thousand different unimaginable ways. Sorrow. Fear. Honora would inject the feeling into Myla like a drug in her veins.

“And in return, I can give you more. I can make you whole.” Honora would allow the unpleasant feelings to fade, instead wrapping Myla once again in the joy. The peace, the calm satisfaction, a pleasure that was physical and mental, would fill Myla’s very spirit with transcendental bliss…all the while with Honora at the very center. The source and the object, all at once. The longer Honora stayed in Myla's mind, the more difficult it would be to resist.

Myla surged again at the feelings that weren’t hers, light and harmony and things she had possibly once had. As a child. Stripped and so far away that this made her sick, her stomach twisted. It was cruel. These feelings only slammed her with memories of pain. Long ago buried in her mind.

Fear threatened to consume her at the acts of Hiram. Bubbling in her… a fear for Honora. Yet something flickered, and for a moment, it was red hair not blonde… and then it was blonde hair but not female… male… her power twisting with Honora’s but untrained against her. Never matched with this gift before and it was grappling… flickering like a flame in the wind.

Panic started to settle in. Then it eased, no this was wrong, wrong, wrong… Honora. She could give her the out. The one she had not voiced ever in her life, perhaps why she had run from Hiram and the others when they finished the task in Arynn Frey… the one she dared dreamed about for a brief moment with Remiel before he tore that dream away. “Let me go, I’ll talk to you outside… outside of this. Stop caging me.” there was an edge to her words, a plea.

Honora recognized Remiel immediately. Her mind flitted to him like a moth to a flame. It gave her the foothold she’d been looking for. A reasonable proxy for what she was trying to instill. Myla’s plea seemed to come from it as Honora stripped more and more of her mind away to find what was buried within. Despite who Myla was, and who Honora was relative to her, she felt compassion for the woman who now pleaded with her. For a moment, she considered relenting.

But then she remembered what she stood to lose.

“I’m sorry…” Honora said gently before she’d sever whatever line of communication that had remained open between them. Myla would no longer be able to speak, for Honora was sure there was only one way forward. Myla had to be transformed. It was the only way she could be sure of her continued safety. And so she seized on the memories of Remiel, twisted them so that it was her in her brother’s place. She’d tear through Myla’s mind and drag every thread of love and tenderness that existed to herself and tie it tightly to her. She planted seeds, what roots would grow, what form that love would take—but it was love all the same.

And it would hurt. It would take every shred of Honora’s power to accomplish, her mind screaming for relief as she forged the connection between her and the Eldouir. Protector. Keeper. Defender. Co-conspirator. By the time she was done, it would be Honora that she trusted most in the world, needed most, and loved in a way Myla would not have known before.

When she was done, Myla would not know of her relationship with Remiel. Honora would be substituted in those memories, Myla thinking that it was Honora that mattered most. She’d remember that she’d been forced to go away to Dresmond, away from the object of her affection, and that in their return Hiram had brought Honora back from the brink. Her feelings toward Hiram would be that of skeptical acquiesce. A need to play along…so long as it suited her. Not her—them. Honora—her darling, her canary, her treasure.

It would take every ounce of what Honora had left. When she was done, Honora would pull back. She’d collapse onto the ground, shaking. When Myla came to, she’d believe that she and Honora had been training with her gift. She'd remember nothing of Hiram's request to reform. She'd believe that this was nothing more than an exercise, with the woman she loved and trusted most. Allowing Honora to practice her gift in safety.

The apology was met with only one word, “No—,” before she was ripped apart. She thought she had been keeping her at bay, had made it clear… but as bit by bit she was torn apart… she had thought wrong. Myla wouldn’t give until she felt the weight leaving her, her mind flickering to darkness for a few moments before she’d surge back up in bed. Lightening striking behind her eyes with pain, her hand pressing up to her head as she groaned. What… the…

Hazel eyes flashed open as she turned her gaze to the heap of Honora against the door. “You shouldn’t practice standing up,” it was a scold, her voice still very much Myla’s quick chiding. But she moved out of the bed and padded barefoot over to Honora. Brushing back some of her blonde hair from her face. “You should at least sit in a chair…” as if she had told Honora this a hundred times before. Wi to the assistance of her gift, she lifted Honora up and moved her to the bed, crawling in beside her and taking her hand. “How long was I out?”

It was strange. Honora knew that the affection with which Myla brushed her hair back was a fiction of her making. But it was a lie made real, and Honora couldn’t help but feel comfort in the tenderness, and safety in the way that Myla lifted her. She was as much a victim of her creations as any other. The intimacy was real. The closeness was real. And how she craved it, particularly after what horror she'd endured at the hands of men. Honora took Myla’s hand easily as if it were a second-nature gesture.

“I shouldn’t practice on you more like,” Honora teased, “You’ve always given me trouble.” She ran her fingers over the back of Myla’s hand. “And not for long. We have to put on a good act for Hiram, after all. Aren’t I supposed to be ‘fixing’ you?” Honora laughed and nestled herself a little closer.

A huff of disagreement, her eyes almost rolling. “And that is precisely why you should train on me. Why make it easy?” She was an Eldouir after all. She believe in swift and demanding results… though the image of her slumped on the ground made her worry. Made a small line appear between her brows, her fingers brushing along Honora’s hand slowly. She had always been a bitter lover… a confident and all consuming one… but with Remiel Honora… she had moments where she was gentle.

Hiram. His name made her body tense. “Fixing.” The word caused her to frown as she repeated it. “I’m not broken.” Her tone harsh but lacking volume. All of them were broken, she was just beyond stubborn about it. That alone was causing her head to ache once more. “What will keep him at bay? For me to bow down to you? To him?” She turned her face to look down at Honora, brushing lips to her forehead simply because it was there… it was close.