[story] reprisal
author: peskywhistpaw (peskywhistpaw)
Her breath blooms like stolen fairy kisses in the chilly air, and the garden walls are coming alive beneath the moonlight. Ivy vines crawl up crumbling stones, pushing through cracks and dust and memory; morning dew come early shines silver. She can almost watch the white flowers bloom, wither, fade, bloom again, the cycle hurried along for just this moment. Wild roses sneak their untamed thorns among the tulips.
Humming a tune from faraway lands that might exist only in dreams, she steps across the rocks that surge out of the quiet pond like islands. She slips once, but the ripples are careful to cover her mistake, and soon swell too wide to be seen. The hem of her gown is damp when she leaps lightly onto the grassy bank.
There are birds here at this hour, lost and invisible. She hears the flutter of their wings, and the thoughts carried with each feather. Her lips curve as she looks towards the darkened sky.
Her footprints are shadows in the grass, ghosts of her presence. Will the world wake in its sunlit hours and feel unease inside its bones?
This will be a haunted place.
Only ticking clocks and shifting clouds will tell.
A cricket chirrups in greeting, and she brushes past, bare feet careful. Hers is a strange dance: jolting, practiced, unpredictable, smooth. Peeking over the garden wall with prying eyes, a stranger might mistake her for something of a different time. She is the black, inked lines upon old, yellowing pages, a dying breed of magic. Her corners are stained and curled. Has anyone ever truly seen her?
She smiles.
Whispers lead her to the weeping willow tree. Its branches are still in the absence of wind, a curtain of silent, tapering leaves and slender branches. She pushes them aside with one hand, and enters their domed, earthen room. Through the leafy roof, the stars glint in cracks full of light.
She remembers soft touches, frenzied touches, here. The feel of skin, the cloud of breath. Words spoken into her ear that slid shivers down her spine, and tingled in her heart. A hand to her perspiring brow, she closes her eyes, and almost regrets - but never forgets. This is the rule, and it pulls her mind away from thoughts of undoing what cannot be undone.
She sinks to her knees, her gown billowing around her before it settles like water. It is robin's egg blue, yet at this hour, the color transforms nearly into white. For innocence?
Nay. The remembrance of that unsuspecting, twisted mouth reminds her that it is too late for that.
The ground is warm. By daylight, it is summertime, and the dirt remembers it well, even now. With broken nails and scratched fingers - the only indication that perhaps she is not what she seems - she scrapes at the earth, digging. Digging, but not for long; just enough for a shrew's burrowed nest, a narrow tunnel. When her visage gleams from the exertion, she stops, and straightens her back into its lady's curve; and she reaches up to unclasp with soiled hands the chain from around her neck. Tarnished silver, liquid in her palms. She touches the little clasped locket, remembers having it urgently pressed to her breast. Keep it.
Her smile returns, and when she wipes her fingers across her forehead, they leave a streak of muddied earth and blood. It matches the front of her gown. She is stained crimson with revenge; there are flecks of drying red in her golden hair. She tosses the locket like a prisoner's chain deep into the hole, follows it with a long, skeletal key, and a worn map, and begins to bury them all.
"You were always so good to me, my love," she says in a reminiscing whisper, and she looks to the boot-clad feet that lie stiff and motionless beside her, fondness in her eyes. "A gentleman until you forgot, and then a gentleman again, in the end." She sighs. "Would that you had been true to me alone."
His skin is still warm, his dark hair still combed. She takes his hands in hers and pulls him toward the weeping willow tree, propping him against its silver trunk as he sits. She molds his mouth into peace, closes his eyes. He sleeps, and sleeps, and sleeps.
Straddling his legs with her own, and perching briefly in his lap, she pulls on the collar of his torn shirt. She gazes at his quiet face, hears his unspoken laugh.
"Would that you had believed my promise to return."
She traces her fingertips along his jaw, and leaves a kiss upon the scratch on his pale, perfect cheek, whispers words against his lips that even she cannot hear.
And then she stands. There is new blood down her front, but she pays it no mind. Once she slides back through the curtain of leaves, outside this tiny, unassuming cage, it will be the end; all remorse, all that is past, all that occurred in this place will be left behind.
She will be gone long before his wife's servants find him here.
She breathes in, breathes out. Brushes away the tears before they fall. She can sense a breeze stirring just beyond this garden, pawing at the walls to be let in - to draw her out. Sunrise is quickly closing in, but the horizon is hers, and she does not fear. She can smell the salted, biting welcome of the sea, can hear the creaks of her prowling ship, and the snapping of its black flag, the skull and crossbones ghosts above the sleeping town.
She turns to leave, already a half-step beyond the tree, and looks back over her shoulder only once. Her lover rests, the dark X slashed into his pale chest gleaming.
She nods, steps, disappears.
He stole her heart once. It is only fitting that she has stolen his.
the end
Her breath blooms like stolen fairy kisses in the chilly air, and the garden walls are coming alive beneath the moonlight. Ivy vines crawl up crumbling stones, pushing through cracks and dust and memory; morning dew come early shines silver. She can almost watch the white flowers bloom, wither, fade, bloom again, the cycle hurried along for just this moment. Wild roses sneak their untamed thorns among the tulips.
Humming a tune from faraway lands that might exist only in dreams, she steps across the rocks that surge out of the quiet pond like islands. She slips once, but the ripples are careful to cover her mistake, and soon swell too wide to be seen. The hem of her gown is damp when she leaps lightly onto the grassy bank.
There are birds here at this hour, lost and invisible. She hears the flutter of their wings, and the thoughts carried with each feather. Her lips curve as she looks towards the darkened sky.
Her footprints are shadows in the grass, ghosts of her presence. Will the world wake in its sunlit hours and feel unease inside its bones?
This will be a haunted place.
Only ticking clocks and shifting clouds will tell.
A cricket chirrups in greeting, and she brushes past, bare feet careful. Hers is a strange dance: jolting, practiced, unpredictable, smooth. Peeking over the garden wall with prying eyes, a stranger might mistake her for something of a different time. She is the black, inked lines upon old, yellowing pages, a dying breed of magic. Her corners are stained and curled. Has anyone ever truly seen her?
She smiles.
Whispers lead her to the weeping willow tree. Its branches are still in the absence of wind, a curtain of silent, tapering leaves and slender branches. She pushes them aside with one hand, and enters their domed, earthen room. Through the leafy roof, the stars glint in cracks full of light.
She remembers soft touches, frenzied touches, here. The feel of skin, the cloud of breath. Words spoken into her ear that slid shivers down her spine, and tingled in her heart. A hand to her perspiring brow, she closes her eyes, and almost regrets - but never forgets. This is the rule, and it pulls her mind away from thoughts of undoing what cannot be undone.
She sinks to her knees, her gown billowing around her before it settles like water. It is robin's egg blue, yet at this hour, the color transforms nearly into white. For innocence?
Nay. The remembrance of that unsuspecting, twisted mouth reminds her that it is too late for that.
The ground is warm. By daylight, it is summertime, and the dirt remembers it well, even now. With broken nails and scratched fingers - the only indication that perhaps she is not what she seems - she scrapes at the earth, digging. Digging, but not for long; just enough for a shrew's burrowed nest, a narrow tunnel. When her visage gleams from the exertion, she stops, and straightens her back into its lady's curve; and she reaches up to unclasp with soiled hands the chain from around her neck. Tarnished silver, liquid in her palms. She touches the little clasped locket, remembers having it urgently pressed to her breast. Keep it.
Her smile returns, and when she wipes her fingers across her forehead, they leave a streak of muddied earth and blood. It matches the front of her gown. She is stained crimson with revenge; there are flecks of drying red in her golden hair. She tosses the locket like a prisoner's chain deep into the hole, follows it with a long, skeletal key, and a worn map, and begins to bury them all.
"You were always so good to me, my love," she says in a reminiscing whisper, and she looks to the boot-clad feet that lie stiff and motionless beside her, fondness in her eyes. "A gentleman until you forgot, and then a gentleman again, in the end." She sighs. "Would that you had been true to me alone."
His skin is still warm, his dark hair still combed. She takes his hands in hers and pulls him toward the weeping willow tree, propping him against its silver trunk as he sits. She molds his mouth into peace, closes his eyes. He sleeps, and sleeps, and sleeps.
Straddling his legs with her own, and perching briefly in his lap, she pulls on the collar of his torn shirt. She gazes at his quiet face, hears his unspoken laugh.
"Would that you had believed my promise to return."
She traces her fingertips along his jaw, and leaves a kiss upon the scratch on his pale, perfect cheek, whispers words against his lips that even she cannot hear.
And then she stands. There is new blood down her front, but she pays it no mind. Once she slides back through the curtain of leaves, outside this tiny, unassuming cage, it will be the end; all remorse, all that is past, all that occurred in this place will be left behind.
She will be gone long before his wife's servants find him here.
She breathes in, breathes out. Brushes away the tears before they fall. She can sense a breeze stirring just beyond this garden, pawing at the walls to be let in - to draw her out. Sunrise is quickly closing in, but the horizon is hers, and she does not fear. She can smell the salted, biting welcome of the sea, can hear the creaks of her prowling ship, and the snapping of its black flag, the skull and crossbones ghosts above the sleeping town.
She turns to leave, already a half-step beyond the tree, and looks back over her shoulder only once. Her lover rests, the dark X slashed into his pale chest gleaming.
She nods, steps, disappears.
He stole her heart once. It is only fitting that she has stolen his.
the end