The Devil's Fruit
.
Salazar's dagger broke the apple's skin with pleasing ease. The blade sunk delicately into the fruit's rotting structure. There was no resistance; its bruised body had long lost its crunchy texture. The apple bled a vile brown juice that clung to the dagger, before making an inevitable path down Salazar's upright arm. Tempted by curiosity, he brought his wrist to his mouth and calmly licked the putrid juice. His face bore no signs of discomfort as he swallowed the tangy liquid.
Salazar removed a slice of the slimy apple by bringing the blade through it to gently meet his thumb. He lobbed the scrap across the room, where it was soon lost under the writhing bodies of four wild dogs. The deranged animals tore at each other's jaws in their bids to receive the decomposing food. Their eyes seemed to have swollen in their determination, but it was their starved bodies that made their eyes appear to bulge out of their skulls. The wooden door swung open, bouncing off the wall with such a loud bang that the dogs were momentarily frightened into stillness.
Helga moved into the stifling heat of the temporary kitchen. It was the only room in the partly built castle capable of retaining warmth. Helga and her companions struggled drastically with the castle's determination to freeze them to death. In winter they often had to wrap their treasured family tapestries around them as armour against the violent cold. Salazar was delighted to see Helga. He fought back the urge to smile, although he felt the honest urge to do so. He was determined to rattle her before she managed to breathe a single word.
"Spoiled." He hurled the word at her as a vicious accusation. The insult hung in the air, suspended by contempt. The light from the nearby fire cast sinister shadows across Salazar's face, morphing his features into a flickering mask of malice. Helga was taken aback by his attack. Her hands fell into the folds of her dress, as if they sought to shelter there like two startled animals.
"Sorry?" She murmured, confusion pinching her large forehead. Helga was wary of Salazar. Unlike Rowena, she was unable to tell when he was making fun of her. His personality changed so often it left her completely disorientated in his presence. She felt like she was looking through a carriage window, and the scenery outside was jumping impossibly fast between hills, to marshland, to desert, to seaside.
"The apple. It's spoiled," he said in a jarringly light tone, rotating the apple in his hand for her to see. A merry smile spread across his lips. It must be the fire's influence, Helga assured herself, that made it look so wicked.
"Oh," she sighed, noticeably relieved. Helga gathered her dress up and arranger herself in the seat opposite Salazar. The chair was one of Godric's creations; therefore it was much larger and grander than was really necessarily. Helga was short, and in the ambitiously sized chair her feet dangled far above the ground, making her appear even more childlike than usual. Helga had a face that refused to shed the markings of infancy, although her body was filling out more every day. Her skin was as smooth as a newborn baby's, her cheeks two fleshy baubles that supported her wide, emotive eyes.
Salazar was staring unabashedly at Helga while dragging his dagger against his teeth. It was with some difficulty she managed to smile back at him. Helga was wary of Salazar, but she was also powerfully drawn to him. It had become something of her personal mission to dismantle Salazar's hard exterior and unleash the good she knew must be inside him.
It had started on the bleak days following the destruction of their families. As Helga, Rowena and Godric grieved in separate rooms, they were taunted by the grotesquely cheery tune of a flute. The sound seemed to rise from the bowels of hell to torment them, Godric had said as they raced madly around the castle, trying to locate the flute so they could destroy it and be left to mourn in peace. Salazar did a wonderful job at feigning ignorance, suggesting it was a stray ghoul from the dark forest who teased them. But Helga had seen Salazar whittling the flute herself days before with an impish glee.
Instead of being repulsed by Salazar's actions she was moved to great depths of sympathy. Grief was the only explanation she could summon for his treacherous behaviour. He had gone mad with despair, and with the aid of her compassion he might be able to overcome it. As Helga considered Salazar's hidden goodness, he was fantasizing vaguely what it would be like to drive his blade into her plump body. Would her skin break as easily as the apple's soggy exterior? Would her flesh embrace the blade as it sunk with unopposed ease? The eventual contact with bone would offer some resistance, like the apple's core. Ah, but it was a stringy little thing was it not? Would her core be as weak?
Salazar was aware his thoughts were particularly sinister in origin. But really he had no intention of harming Helga, not physically at least. Ever since the great purge of witches and wizards that saw his family burned before his eyes, he found his curiosity spreading beyond the normal limitations of decency. He felt himself wondering more and more what humans were capable of doing, and what the body was capable of enduring. His musings were more scientific than murderous, but that didn't mean he was completely innocent.
He liked nothing more than to cause pain on an emotional basis. Coercion through well-placed words was his choice of weapon. Helga was his favourite victim. Rowena was too quick of mind to stand his meddling, and Godric was so self-involved he hardly realised when Salazar was talking to him, let alone trying to persuade him of some treacherous deceit. Ah, but dear Helga. She was perfect for his intentions. So caring, so trusting, so disgustingly innocent in her naivety. He found her natural cheeriness offensive in every way, and it was his greatest goal in his boredom to smother it.
"You're fleeing from Godric aren't you? I'd wager he's being unforgivingly boring again," Salazar said, swinging his legs onto the table and leaning back in his chair in a playful manner.
"That's a terrible thing to say," Helga chided him, but it was really herself that she was chiding, for secretly agreeing with it.
"Godric's not boring," she stated loudly, as if volume would substitute for the lack of confidence in what she was saying. "He's just a bit…"
"Eager?" Salazar offered helpfully, balancing his dagger on the tip of his finger.
"Yes!" Helga yielded, because the word didn't seem quite so cruel. "And there's nothing wrong with that," she continued, "I'm just awfully tired and I'm not in the best mood to appreciate his…eagerness."
Helga was particularly tired because she worked the hardest at pulling their dream castle out of their minds and sculpting it into a reality. Because of her magical abilities she was not held back by female limitations. She was able to shape and shift huge blocks of stone with the aid of her wand, though these spells took their toll in their own way. Constantly being on the brink of mental exhaustion made Helga all the more susceptible to Salazar's emotional prodding.
"Godric is rather attached to you, isn't he?" Salazar asked in a voice oiled with sympathy. He was enjoying feigning friendliness even more than being openly cruel. It was an even greater deception, and a far bigger challenge for him to grapple with.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she replied, but her face was a direct route to her emotions. Her visible pain made Salazar tingle with pleasure.
"Come now, Helga," he coaxed tenderly, with the air of a concerned brother, "he must've made some offer of his affection?"
"Oh, I wish he hadn't!" She wailed, abandoning her weak attempt at denial. "I don't know anything of the kind of love he talks about!" She bit her lower lip in anguish. What was that, Salazar wondered, radiating from her slumped posture? Was it guilt resting on her chewing lips? Surely Helga didn't fear she was somehow accountable for Godric's undivided attention? Godric was a colossal buffoon who would declare his eternal love for a toadstool if he were in a particularly dramatic mood. But Helga was a creature of endless compassion, always taking on other people's problems as her own. She would of course feel guilty at causing Godric pain when she refused his offer. But could she feel guilty about Godric being attracted to her in the first place?
And then the greatest temptation presented itself before Salazar. He was going to make Helga despise herself. Salazar slid his hand across the table towards Helga's. She gratefully accepted his soothing caress. He had her now. She'd shed her caution and was spilling her heart out on the table to him. She was on the edge of despair. Now it was time for him to turn the tables on her once again, and send her over the edge.
"But it is your fault, isn't it?" He said calmly, bearing a condescending smile. Her head flew up in shock.
"What?" She whispered dryly.
"The excessive attention you've given him can only be perceived as the deepest admiration."
"No, no," she muttered gravely, her eyes, already red from weariness, beginning to moisten.
"The way you lead him on, I'm not surprised that Godric is in the grips of a painful infatuation."
"I only ever meant to convey kindness," she cried, her chest heaving with panicked breaths.
"He's my oldest friend, Helga, it's my job to try and protect him against this type of female trickery," Salazar said with exaggerated righteousness. "It's really very cruel of you. Have some compassion for him," Salazar finished with a final dramatic flourish that would make most actors jealous. She shook her head disbelievingly. He held the hilt of his dagger in the tips of his fingers and swung it round in small circles, as if it was a bird lazily preparing to swoop on it's all too willing prey.
"I didn't mean to…" Some thread of self-assurance broke in Helga. Salazar drove the dagger in to the rotten apple as tears begun to pour with silent urgency down Helga's face. Although she knew she never intended it, she began to believe that maybe there was some part of her deep down that had misled and lured Godric into a one sided-attachment. And so Salazar had succeeded in convincing Helga of something she was incapable of doing. He'd broken her, not with blades or violence, but with a succession of deceitful words.
"I only meant to convey kindness…" Helga repeated softly to herself, but it was a hollow consolation. She was distraught. Salazar was delighted, and had to hide his mouth behind his hand as an elated grin spilled out across his lips.
Helga steadied her panicked breaths and wiped her blotchy face on her sleeve. She pushed her curls in front of chest in an unconscious act of modesty. As she stood up to leave Salazar lifted his dagger, the soggy apple still wrapped around it. With a sharp flick he dislodged the apple so that it rolled across the floor. The smallest dog was first to seize it, but soon the other dogs were attacking him so ferociously he was forced to spit the punctured mess from his teeth. Helga immediately dove to separate the dogs but their teeth tore at her hand in their blind rage. She lurched back, blood teeming from a deep gash in her finger. Salazar leapt up spryly, lured by the bright splash of red. He held her wrist in a bruise-inducing grip, letting the firelight fall upon the blood swelling from her finger.
"Helga you've hurt yourself," he scolded, clucking his tongue reprovingly. Helga whimpered. She hadn't hurt herself at all. It was the dogs, purposely starved by Salazar to the point of madness that had separated her flesh. She was feeling weakened by the quick loss of blood. Helga had never performed a healing spell, for fear of causing more harm. She knew Salazar was especially skilled at them, and yet he didn't offer to seal her skin and tide the flow. She struggled from his grip and left the room bruised and bleeding, her natural cheeriness broken. A seductive drop of Helga's blood had spilled on to Salazar's finger. Tempted by curiosity, he lifted it too his mouth and extended an inquisitive tongue. He bore no signs of discomfort as the metallic taste awoke his taste buds. Salazar pulled out a twisted wooden flute from his pocket, and put it to his blood stained lips. As the firelight warped his features into monstrous distortions, he took up his tune of mocking cheerfulness once more.