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Gerringothe Thorm dreams in colour.
Not the shapeless, waxen watercolours that are neither special nor memorable, that bleed from recollection as soon as dawn breaks. She dreams of colours so wild and so garish, she barely dares to breathe, as if one small move could shatter the spell and drown her in the collapse of hues and shades before she could wake.
In her dreams, she is in Reithwin Town, because she’s never known anywhere else.
Or maybe because nowhere else even exists.
In her very best dreams, though, Gerringothe is her true self, the version she was born to become. No longer the abomination that she once was - some foul amalgamation of human and elf that the cursed Thorms have somehow always been. No longer cursed to linger in the shadows of her brethren’s footsteps; forever scenting the power she craved, but never able to sample a taste.
Never a princess, but a king, she is the Governor of Reithwin instead of that fool Ketheric - cracked by his arrogance, smashed to bits by his grief - much like his decrepit statue that once stood tall in the centre of town.
She also seals that scourge of an underground sanctuary beneath Ketheric’s statue - every time - and floods it until the cracks in the vestibule weep rivers of sanguine scarlet into the streets. With rubies or blood… it matters not when they both clot and shimmer the same under wan torchlight.
Gerringothe hasn't use for the nothing that Shar offers… not when she can have everything.
From the streets to the riverbanks, and all the black sand and over-designed architecture in between, every inch of Reithwin is littered with diamonds - peeled from burdens of soil and rock, steamed and sandblasted until radiant, incandescent, and boldly flaring like ten-thousand tiny rainbows etched into the eternal, amber twilight sky.
Even the citizens she passes are dazzled by the astonishing arterial glow of their town. Yes, Gerringothe allows them to stay - she’s pragmatic, not unnecessarily cruel.
Strewn on the streets or crumpled in the Tollhouse, they behold her spoils with openmouthed wonder, jaws unhinged, and tongues as black as jet. They follow her with the pearls of their eyes, gaping as they drink in her molten glory, unable to blink, or sleep, or look away.
Ever again.
But her favorite part of her dreams - without comparison, quandary, or contest - is herself, adorned and luminous in the coin armour she’d worked so tirelessly to acquire.
When she wears it… her pleasure is unparalleled… her joy a fever.
Because she is what she was born to become.
Perfect.
Until she wakes.
Always… she wakes.
…
Time hasn’t had meaning in Reithwin for over a century; there is existing, and then there isn’t, and that is the only thing that can be quantified in the Shadow-Cursed Lands.
Gerringothe persists… for now. Though, she isn’t sure for how much longer without her coin armour.
MINE.
THEY STOLE IT.
Instinctively, she clenches her last, precious coin in her fist - tightly enough that her dry, ashen flesh would crack and bleed if her hand had little more strength than a dead, gnarled root.
It’s the coin they didn’t find when they robbed her, when they tricked her...
When they tried to kill her.
She doesn’t like remembering it - this grievous offense that she didn’t deserve - but when she does, her last coin is the only thing that can comfort her, it’s the only thing that reminds her that, unlike all others, her dreams come true; even if she has to force them.
Held in her mouth, the coin makes her moan and shiver. She drinks in the rich, heady flavor of blood-burnished metal, savoring the generous weight of it on her tongue, and imagines it glitters like stardust - warm, wet, and protected within the confines of her mouth - just as her entire body gleamed while bedecked in her suit of armour, fabricated only from coins and dark magic.
As her tongue quivers and writhes between the rough grooves that edge the coin, she remembers the sheer heat inside of the suit. The way her breath would hitch and her skin would tingle with every powerful, earth-shaking step that she took.
The way it made her sweat.
Solid and sumptuous, her mouth waters for her memories - not with disgusting, slippery mortal fluids, but with thick, molten rivulets of liquid gold - frothing from her lips, dripping from her eyes.
She can almost taste it.
If they only knew the sacrifices that she had to make, the price she had to pay for her coin armour, then maybe they would have understood. All those people… all those tolls… now all in vain, worthless without her golden suit.
They didn’t see what the town was like when the lurching dark was unleashed; they didn’t see how the townspeople turned into animals - biting, scratching, and tearing each other apart to be first in line at the Tollhouse. Friend or neighbor, any relation at all meant nothing in the face of stark raving terror.
The people didn’t understand that a liberation was occurring; unable to comprehend that a life unshackled from the burden of choice was a blessing and not a curse. It wasn’t their fault - they were never meant to survive.
Gerringothe understood, but that didn’t mean that she could let them pass. Not without paying the toll, and there was only one payment that she would accept…
Eventually, and not surprisingly, the people insisted that there was no more gold, and offered her sentimentality instead.
That is to say, junk.
They lied to her and mocked her intelligence at every turn, offering anything from portraits to pets - ridiculous transgressions that she could not forgive.
Of course, there was more gold. There was always more gold.
Gerringothe could smell it. Their breath stank of it as they begged.
They hadn’t left her with any other choice.
It'd been easy, not any different than dragging a dagger along the front seam of a doll, plucking the stitches out one thread at a time, transfixed as their soft torsos began to collapse, innards spilling forth in unbleached cotton clouds of fluff - picked apart and clinging to her face, her throat, and the brown-brick flooring beneath her boots. Her hands slipped inside easily, crackling like boots on dried leaves as she dug in and searched. If they were hiding something, she would find it.
She always did.
And in the end… they paid more than their share.
The purest sound in the world startles her from her reverie; the clinking of coins in a traveler’s pocket - crisp, clear, and bright as church bells.
More adventurers have just wandered into her Tollhouse, but they aren’t as formidable as the last. The fear in their hurried whispers tickles her ears, the scent of their dread is brackish like bile on her lips.
They haven’t reported to the Tollmaster.
No payment. No passage.
This is her chance. She will make her dreams come true… she must. If she doesn’t, then everything she’s worked for, everything she’s achieved, will have meant nothing.
And Gerringothe has no use for nothing.
Not when she can have everything.