Standard Disclaimer: Yami no Matsuei © Matsuhita Youko, Central Park Media, et al.
Rating: PG-13 (murder, mayhem and implied NCS)
Summary: Under the sakura trees, Muraki waits.
AN: The English verb "to write" derives ultimately from an Indo-European root wreid- meaning "to cut, scratch, tear."
Mutability
By Dorian Gray (hinikunokotsuzui@yahoo.com)
Morning. An unavoidable obligation. He had the honor of serving, the pleasure of a short drive to the best part of town where houses tower behind walls and gates. A door opened -- bows all around -- a half-hour of nothings, airy words that sounded well in big empty rooms. He was shown up stairs, winding stairs that curled in on themselves, up to Madam's rooms: perfume, powder and silk; a frail thing in the middle of a huge bed, she wore a nightgown and jewelry; a tremulous smile; hope that all things can be bought -- a woman who did not yet know she was dying. He played his part, played it well: a soft voice, a gentle smile, healing hands, little white pills, nothing but sugar -- all that needed to be said -- all that needed to be done -- a last bow with a whispered "by your leave . . . "
Then there were small white rooms that led to dark hallways; a greedy fool's handshake; cigars and brandy, just for show; a fire in summer; armchairs; secrets; invitations that could not be refused within the game of niceties -- nothings everywhere. The strings were too easy to find that would make them all dance, and so the game grew dull. Boredom covered everything -- numbed. He extricated himself with practiced ease. No trap of theirs could hold him.
He walked down by the park as twilight ate up the sky. The breeze was light but enough to stir the sakura petals into swirling eddies. They danced at his feet and tumbled over the grass. Night eased over all, driven back only by city lights and faint, faint stars. For hours he was alone until . . .
She caught his eye at once and held it -- alone and so beautiful, moving quickly, fleeting, fragile as glass. But he had been waiting with such slow patience in the moonlight for someone -- something like her. The day had been tedious, another in a long line stretching back in gray monotony, but this was perfect and he could not resist. She had trapped him in that moment, and now she was in his arms. Blood transpired at her skin.
The night whispered sweet nothings in her ear, even as her eyes closed. They had been beautiful eyes, so beautiful the trees around her were crying -- pinks tears, the color of blood and water, the color on her cheeks, in the tracks that followed the curve of her face like a caress, running down her neck like the tongue of a lover. Did they find the hollow of her throat? Between her breasts? Her stomach? Further? Where? Where did they dissolve?
She was so beautiful, so warm to the last, something to be savored. There! her heart faltered, so slow now, so weak, so faint. And then gone. A transitory thing, she had melted in his arms with a sigh -- no more screams, just quiet and the night.
Or so he thought.
But then there were eyes looking up -- wide eyes innocent in the dark, so beautiful that they glowed -- green, the green of a living thing. At once he was trapped again and held. There was no other way. He could not escape them.
The eyes grew a face, and the face a body. So young, so vestal -- it sent a tingle down his spine, tightening, pulling on live nerve-strands. The thing before him was so fragile, a line of spun glass, a snowflake to catch on his tongue. It was too beautiful not to touch, beautiful with long spindly limbs like some glorious insect; a moth, he would pull off its wings; a spider, its legs. He would tear and smash and rend and cut, grind it into the ground, cover it with dirt. He would eat of it and swallow. The thing was under him, below, around. It had trapped him. He would consume it. Let the trees weep. Let the night whisper. The moon saw and the moon would know. It was no longer innocent but red.
He was glad when the mouth stopped screaming. Beautiful things should be silent -- only stare. The body gave way to the eyes -- green, not the green of a living thing, but not dead -- not yet. Its passing would be more than a sigh. He willed it so, willed it to linger like a ripple on still water, spending itself to the last groan. He would watch it wither, watch as it ate itself down to the bone and beyond. The soul's a mad thing in prison. Let it eat flesh. That is the way to knowledge. Long ago he had learned to read the old books. Here was a blank page, begging to be writ -- red ink on white paper -- lines -- narrowing -- each stroke a scream that the night devoured, the darkness always empty, always hungry, always bored.
The night grew brittle. It was done. He left the thing there, crumpled, all eyes, staring upwards but not seeing. He was free of it now. It had no hold on him, nothing that would not melt away in the sun. Slowly the tedium of daylight was returning -- he could already feel it under his skin -- duty and soft words, dumb puppets with obvious strings. Satisfaction was only a transitory thing -- yet there was hope. Day might swallow night but it always vomited up darkness. Tomorrow he might find something better, a lasting thing, something that he could break and break and break and not be broken. Until then, he would wait -- wait with the long patience of a spider, spinning, casting out his filaments, feeling for tremors on every line even as the world slipped by.
He spread his arms to the sky. Let the dawn come.