In Memory (Fairytales, unnamed characters)
Title: In Memory
Fandom: Fairytales
Characters: Unnamed people.
Challenge: Challenge Fourteen at ES; Lyrics challenge: Starsign by Apoptygma Berzerk.
Notes: Another fairytale thing I like, despite the style. About 1020 words. Mentions incest, so if that squicks you, don't read.
---
I'm waiting for a sign, have to leave this place behind
Where no one knows my name
[...]
but it's about time
That this world goes up in flames...
-
Life was a never ending cycle: and the queen had learned that too long ago to remember the reasons why she knew it was so.
In bed, at night, lying next to her lord and husband and king, she dreams, snippets of a life long, long past. Of a beautiful princess playing in a garden, of tea parties with dolls and servants that smiled, of laughter. Of love and light and life. She dreams and is happy, curled around her pillow, her golden tresses spread out, and she doesn't compare the girl in the dreams to the queen she is. She has forgotten, for life is different now, and to remember in the physical world is to invite certain depression. And somewhere, down inside of her soul, she does not wish to be such a queen.
She's forgotten everything: the death of her mother, the promise and the horrible, horrible knowledge that claimed her the night of her mother's death. She has forgotten, because it was the only way to survive, in her father's bed, without going bad when from between her legs, a son was born.
And she so subsequently forgot the birth that brought forth the new king, the man lying in bed next to her. She had been young when her mother died, no older than thirteen, and still young when her lord and father and husband died. Too young to let go of life, and full of promise and potential.
Her mind does not remember, for she does not wish to, and she has forgotten the trick of reading her soul, of hearing the whispers that pulse through her blood.
-
The princess knows, for the princess knows her soul and hears the whispers of her body, and to compensate her thinned blood, the Fates had graced her; or cursed her, for the knowledge is not something she wishes.
There is a crone who sneaks into her garden, wizened and old, in the guise of a bird, and whispers to her during naps beneath the willow tree. The tree protects her from harm, but knowledge is not harm, and the tree remembers as well.
It is weary of watching the princesses it guards change into women who are not women, but hollow shells of beauty and pride. It wearies of being in a place that is dark and sick with disease and unhappy. It wishes for the freedom of its sisters, but it knows that it will not attain such a thing, until the cycle is broken of its bonds and freed from the wheel it spins around on.
The princess rests under the tree, and the crone speaks; the words invade her dreams. But more than any of that, her blood whispers in her veins, her heart speaks. She does not think she can forget, for the knowledge is imprinted on her.
-
The queen dies: the queen is always meant to die. She is old; her king is still young, but not as young as he was when forced to married. The princess is young, still, but old enough to marry: her mother was married at her age.
The promise made to the queen was made out of lust, out of pride, out of greed. It was not made out of love, as the promise before had rumored to have been. And the rumors that circulate this time say the wrong thing. The rumors are always wrong.
The princess shivers when her brother who is her father who says he will be her king and husband looks at her. She feels the chains that bound her mother, and her mother before her and her mother slip into place, invisible golden bonds that threaten to squeeze and squeeze until she is nothing more than an empty vessel, free from memories.
But her blood whispers in her body, and her soul cries out, and the princess flees to her garden before the chains can begin to crush her, spirit and memory and soul.
-
The tree and the crone whisper to her, in the dreams she has, dreams of her blood: the princesses, golden and laughing, slowly becoming vessels of nothing. And while she dreams, the crone whispers to her and the tree cradles, and when she wakes, she knows what to do.
-
It is not hard to assure sleep for the castle. The wedding means celebrating, even if it is a dark celebration, everyone drinks the wine that flows freely from a fountain, from pitchers, from the mouths of others. It takes a built up supply of drugs, and it takes stealth to mix it into the wine, but there is something guiding the princess, she knows, when she slips from her room and into the kitchens early, early in the morning of her wedding day and funeral.
She makes sure to drink nothing except water throughout the day, disposing of glasses of wine when they are slipped into her hand. But even so, her body feels heavy as she walks the quiet castle, dropping dry rushes covered in pitch. The flint and stone in her pocket weighs her down, forcing her to walk the steps that lead to the highest tower in the castle slowly.
She is saying her last good bye.
She sets fire to the rushes in the tower and flees, stopping once in the great hall to strike stone and flint and watch the sparks catch and the rushes go up in flames. The twin fires will meet and collide, and burn the castle until it is an empty shell of stone, and the plants shall overgrow the ruins, until people forget the castle, and the kings and the queens that are father and brother, mother and sister.
She flees once again, to her garden, and seeks out the willow tree, who wraps her in protective branches, pitying the princess: she is young, so young, and facing the death of her world. But it is for the best, and the tree keeps the flames away until the branches can squeeze the life from the princess with, allowing love to kill her instead of hate.
Fandom: Fairytales
Characters: Unnamed people.
Challenge: Challenge Fourteen at ES; Lyrics challenge: Starsign by Apoptygma Berzerk.
Notes: Another fairytale thing I like, despite the style. About 1020 words. Mentions incest, so if that squicks you, don't read.
---
I'm waiting for a sign, have to leave this place behind
Where no one knows my name
[...]
but it's about time
That this world goes up in flames...
-
Life was a never ending cycle: and the queen had learned that too long ago to remember the reasons why she knew it was so.
In bed, at night, lying next to her lord and husband and king, she dreams, snippets of a life long, long past. Of a beautiful princess playing in a garden, of tea parties with dolls and servants that smiled, of laughter. Of love and light and life. She dreams and is happy, curled around her pillow, her golden tresses spread out, and she doesn't compare the girl in the dreams to the queen she is. She has forgotten, for life is different now, and to remember in the physical world is to invite certain depression. And somewhere, down inside of her soul, she does not wish to be such a queen.
She's forgotten everything: the death of her mother, the promise and the horrible, horrible knowledge that claimed her the night of her mother's death. She has forgotten, because it was the only way to survive, in her father's bed, without going bad when from between her legs, a son was born.
And she so subsequently forgot the birth that brought forth the new king, the man lying in bed next to her. She had been young when her mother died, no older than thirteen, and still young when her lord and father and husband died. Too young to let go of life, and full of promise and potential.
Her mind does not remember, for she does not wish to, and she has forgotten the trick of reading her soul, of hearing the whispers that pulse through her blood.
-
The princess knows, for the princess knows her soul and hears the whispers of her body, and to compensate her thinned blood, the Fates had graced her; or cursed her, for the knowledge is not something she wishes.
There is a crone who sneaks into her garden, wizened and old, in the guise of a bird, and whispers to her during naps beneath the willow tree. The tree protects her from harm, but knowledge is not harm, and the tree remembers as well.
It is weary of watching the princesses it guards change into women who are not women, but hollow shells of beauty and pride. It wearies of being in a place that is dark and sick with disease and unhappy. It wishes for the freedom of its sisters, but it knows that it will not attain such a thing, until the cycle is broken of its bonds and freed from the wheel it spins around on.
The princess rests under the tree, and the crone speaks; the words invade her dreams. But more than any of that, her blood whispers in her veins, her heart speaks. She does not think she can forget, for the knowledge is imprinted on her.
-
The queen dies: the queen is always meant to die. She is old; her king is still young, but not as young as he was when forced to married. The princess is young, still, but old enough to marry: her mother was married at her age.
The promise made to the queen was made out of lust, out of pride, out of greed. It was not made out of love, as the promise before had rumored to have been. And the rumors that circulate this time say the wrong thing. The rumors are always wrong.
The princess shivers when her brother who is her father who says he will be her king and husband looks at her. She feels the chains that bound her mother, and her mother before her and her mother slip into place, invisible golden bonds that threaten to squeeze and squeeze until she is nothing more than an empty vessel, free from memories.
But her blood whispers in her body, and her soul cries out, and the princess flees to her garden before the chains can begin to crush her, spirit and memory and soul.
-
The tree and the crone whisper to her, in the dreams she has, dreams of her blood: the princesses, golden and laughing, slowly becoming vessels of nothing. And while she dreams, the crone whispers to her and the tree cradles, and when she wakes, she knows what to do.
-
It is not hard to assure sleep for the castle. The wedding means celebrating, even if it is a dark celebration, everyone drinks the wine that flows freely from a fountain, from pitchers, from the mouths of others. It takes a built up supply of drugs, and it takes stealth to mix it into the wine, but there is something guiding the princess, she knows, when she slips from her room and into the kitchens early, early in the morning of her wedding day and funeral.
She makes sure to drink nothing except water throughout the day, disposing of glasses of wine when they are slipped into her hand. But even so, her body feels heavy as she walks the quiet castle, dropping dry rushes covered in pitch. The flint and stone in her pocket weighs her down, forcing her to walk the steps that lead to the highest tower in the castle slowly.
She is saying her last good bye.
She sets fire to the rushes in the tower and flees, stopping once in the great hall to strike stone and flint and watch the sparks catch and the rushes go up in flames. The twin fires will meet and collide, and burn the castle until it is an empty shell of stone, and the plants shall overgrow the ruins, until people forget the castle, and the kings and the queens that are father and brother, mother and sister.
She flees once again, to her garden, and seeks out the willow tree, who wraps her in protective branches, pitying the princess: she is young, so young, and facing the death of her world. But it is for the best, and the tree keeps the flames away until the branches can squeeze the life from the princess with, allowing love to kill her instead of hate.