Twenty Thousand Wilting Lovers - Bella
Title: Twenty Thousand Wilting Lovers
Author: Rachel McFaith
bloodrebel333
Pairing: Implied Bella/Voldemort, Bella/Narrator
Word Count: 367
Author's Note: Written for Emma
monifieth's birthday. Thanks to
sasha_davidovna, W. and
txilar for beta/readthrough/suggestions. First of three stories I'm planning to post tonight.
Twenty Thousand Wilting Lovers
Twenty thousand wilting lovers couldn’t make you feel the way I do, and don’t you see, there’s nothing new: a taste of soap behind your lip, an oily feel beside your nose, and you’re no different than all the others, what made you think you were any different?
There is no point in trusting a shadow to pick up the echo of your feet when you know the man walking three steps behind you every night will beat her to it, and you’re wearing the knowledge like a face you haven’t the patience to unfold; why do you deny what’s carved in the streaks of your face, engraved in the shadows in your eyes, etched in your breath, mired by hitches you can’t convey?
With the passing of the years your eyes lose humanity like a leaking dam, and the more you slip the more vicious you get, each spell stretching your viewpoint like the childbirth you’ll never experience does a woman’s skin. You forget how it feels to dance in the rain; you forget how it feels to duel your cousin in the forest until you’re both out of breath and laughing helplessly; you forget the smell of freshly cut grass in your hair and the taste of dew on your tongue. You focus on building a safe future for the children you’ll never have, on saving your beloved from enemies few others recognise as such, on keeping the power every lover, cousin and sibling you’ve ever had takes for granted.
And in the end, you give your passion and your mind and your will to what every breath you heave tells you is right, give up your freedom and beauty and youth to the belief you can’t deny, give in to the strength of the man who claims he can give you what you always wanted, only to hear me tell you that twenty thousand wilting lovers couldn’t make you feel the way I do, and don’t you see, there’s nothing new: a taste of soap behind your lip, an oily feel beside your nose, and you’re no different than all the others, what made you think you were any different?
fin.