Vashti

Lovely


She was always quite sharp, Vashti. Quick witted, and a tongue like a dagger. She was never afraid to speak her mind, or tell you how you were doing in your roll as King.
"You can't expect to rule this land without the respect of your queens." She would say, holding herself as if she bore the strength of every lord in the land. "You cannot let your desires draw you to agony. Now this land is held not by you- but by murder, lust and grief. " Her lips curled up slightly at the word murder, flashing the smooth tips of her gleaming canines.
"And what are you bound to instead? The passion for beauty that you seem to hold above all else. But what is beauty? What is it that you males yearn so badly for, to ask lionesses to give you their flesh so that you may do as you please? You waste your time, this space, this air, and for what? Some fictitious illusion in your head that you are loved and wanted? You are nothing." The depth of her voice was drowning you, the way it would rise and crash over your head, catching your own in your throat.
Amazing, what power she held over you, that she, so small and youthful, could silence a 'great' beast like yourself. As the word 'nothing' hissed past her teeth, the ferocity in her icy eyes subsided, her volume lowering just enough so that you and only you could hear her low tone. "We may not possess the strength to erase our wrong doings," Vashti began to turn away before she let her final words slither past her lips, "but we can erase you." She turned her back to you, her head held high, taking long, slow strides into the cool night air, leaving her words to sink in. That was a warning.