(Nightmare revolving around my Oblivion Hero of Kvatch. Takes place just before leaving for Martin's coronation.
To be safe I'm putting a trigger warning for Abusive relationships.)
The room was familiar, like an old dream. The sound of breaking glass snapped Selene out of her thoughts and she looked down to find that she had stepped on a glass, crushing the bowl and snapping the stem away. She hadn't noticed before but things that should have been on tables or couches were on the floor, broken or scattered.
Voices brought her attention upstairs, angry voices that were growing in volume.
Why am I here?
There was a small crash followed by a solid thump and the voices stopped, the silence weighed down on everything and it actually frightened her. Though her breathing had sped up and her heart was racing, something pushed her closer to the stairs, to walk up them, to investigate. As she took those first few steps and everything clicked. She recognized the house.
This is his house. Selene quickened her pace, still stepping silently.
There was a door ajar, barley audible mumbling coming from it. Selene pushed open the door, hoping it wouldn't squeal at her intrusion. She stepped beyond the threshold, into the room, and though the entryway to on open space. Selene wasn't paying attention to the room though, rather the woman splayed on the floor. The woman with long, silky, stark black hair. The woman with a long, graceful, green dress on.
Selene walked over to her, careful not to step on anything and knelt down, she put a shaking hand on the woman's shoulder. Selene ignored the tears prickling at her eyes and turned the woman over. The black hair covered her face, but even with the hair and the blood, dark eyes and high cheekbones and bright red lips confirmed her thoughts. As Selene pulled hair away from her sister's face tears rolled over her eyelashes and her bottom lip started to tremble. "No, this-" she choked on the whisper. With shaking hands, she started to pull shards of glass from her sister's temple.
"What are you doing in here."
Selene's head turned to meet the man's eye, "You… killed her." The man scoffed. "I didn't expect to see you again, not after you ran away. And broke my heart." Selene looked at him incredulously.
"…You killed her."
He scoffs again, "She did that to herself."
"You killed… Joanna. My sister. You- you killed her." He smiles and replies, "She just wasn't you." as if it was supposed to flatter her, appease her, make her shut up. As gently as she could, Selene set her sister down and grabbed a fallen vase.
He wasn't watching her anymore, he was looking down at his shirt, at the stains there. Selene lunged at him, vase raised, trying to strike him with it. He raised his arms and the vase breaks on them, leaving little cuts and tears.
Everything is blurry and slightly wet now but she can see enough of his form to realize that he's moving towards her.
He hits her too, but instead of hitting the floor Selene keeps falling as if the ground had opened up. No! No. Let go, let me go back! He needs to die. But she keeps falling, sister's body moving further and further away as she falls.
Suddenly, her back hits water and she's fighting for breath under a wooden trapdoor again.
Hands reach down and yank Selene out of the water, pulling her to warm sand. The hands quickly turn from helping to hurting as ice cold fingers contract around Selene's throat before she even has time to properly catch her breath.
The sun is bright but she can still see the face of the one who's strangling her; pale skin, blood-streaked face, dark hair. "This is your fault!" Selene tries to pry the hands off her, but her sister had always been stronger then her, "Joanna!" The hands don't stop, if anything they just get tighter. "Sister." Her voice is barley a whisper but that doesn't stop the hands either, this time they jerk, causing Selene's head to hit the sand, "Wake up!" her sister screeches, face mere inches from Selene's, but the voice is muddled, like it's being screamed on the other side of a wall.
The words come again but completely indiscernible and her whole body shakes. The hands are gone and it's so much darker but she's still wet and there's still a voice. But now it's male.
"Ma'am." Selene finally recognizes her surroundings, the dead man's room, "Are you alright?"
She nods and sits up, if a little shakily, "Course," still trying to get enough air in her lungs. She'd been sweating, the bedroll and first blanket she was using were wet, as were her clothes, skin, and most of her hair. "As you say ma'am." As the man walks out of the room Selene yanks off all the blankets, letting them sprawl and roll awkwardly on the floor. After sitting for a few moments, trying to catch her breath and not cry, she gets up, sorts through the blankets to find one that isn't wet or too thin.
Once she finds what she was looking for, Selene stands, dragging the blanket behind her, opens the paper door separating the room and hallway, and starts walking down the hallway. The guard posted outside the rooms asks her where she's going, to which she only replies, "Outside."
"But it's the middle of winter!" Selene doesn't reply or spare any glances, just keeps walking to where she knows the door leading outside is.
It's probably considered improper to walk through Cloud Ruler Temple half naked and dragging a blanket around but she doesn't care, her mind is elsewhere. She'd been told her family was fine, that Bastien had moved on. That Joanna was fine, if not a little angry. But still, what if he changed his mind? What if he decided he wanted her sister? He could do that, he could kill her. He had the temper and the disposition. Selene shook her head. No. No, Joanna will marry a nice man who loves her and have many wonderful children to take care of.
As she pulls the fur around her, lifting the hem off the ground and covering herself, she pushes open the door only to have it slam shut again. A flurry of snow had blown inside, leaving a splash of white on the wooden floor and across her feet.