Court of Darkness and Dreams
Red. The color red splattered in a pattern across white snow. Tainting it, twisting it into something it should not have been.
The color red will forever be changed. It wasn't the same as the red that splattered the mud and rocks of the wars past, during brutal wars that I still try to forget. It wasn't the red that I saw when my father misted those who cared not to listen, who dared to speak out for something different. It wasn't the red of roses that grew wildly across a metal fence, yearning for escape. No, it was red. The life, the breath, the joy of those much younger than me. Those who still had dreams, who still had hope, who I ended with a simple command.
I pried into their untrained minds, telling them to scream promising them an end that didn't crawl down their bones with pain. I tried to tell myself that it would be okay. That somehow I was helping them.
I tried. Those words only get you so far. Those words were a promise to me, more so than them. I couldn't bear the thought, the name that would follow me for the rest of my life.
Screams pierced through my ears, the cries and tears of those who bared them crept into my bones, only to leave me standing staring at the massacre that just occurred.
"Good job." Words caressed my ear, lips touching my bottom lope. Words laced with violence, and the promise of an accomplished goal. Scarlet hair blows in the wind, the scent of the woman I'm sworn to brushes my face. I just smile, devious and unforgiving. This is who I have become, this is who I need to be. The flash of red against the white clashes once again, it takes all of me to not move a single muscle in fear or disgust.
I kept my eyes forward. I watched as the morning snow drifted down, covering the red that splattered the ground slowly. I cannot look at the faces twisted in pain, those belonging to the mothers or those who lie on the ground. I had to keep the horizon in my mind, the snow as bitter and cold as I should be. This was me, I will become the darkness of fear, of hate… my thoughts stopped. I had to get out of here. There had to be a way.
I felt my breath skip, I felt my throat closing my mind was no longer my own. This is my hell, and shit I'm sitting on the god damn throne.
Fear. My vision quickly readjusts.
Stone walls, stale air, the absence of light. I'm under the mountain. I'm still under the mountain.
Long fingers trailed my chest, lazily drawing half circles on my chest. A mop of red hair freely scatters the bed, long pale legs tangle mine but don't quite fit right. Something screams through my body telling me it's wrong, and my twisted sense of humor wants to ask what is right. Just a piece of the darkness that heals would breathe life into me.
Cauldron boil me. One way or another I will be free. Rid of this scent, this curse, this life that I now have to call my own.
My life hangs in the balance of a man, who has given up years ago. All I can do is hope. Just try, giving the little bit of freedom that I provided to those on that snowy, bitter morning.
I tried. Until now, I never believed how useless, how longing, how damn pitiful those words were.
What I would give to see the delicate hands of that painter once again. Just a solid form of hope in a fogged vision that some nights the cauldron dared bless me with. The one who used red in flames of fury and rage, who blended colors to make a mark of beauty with painted flowers, and the one who did magic with simple colors to let me see Velaris through a strangers eyes.
The one that gave me hope. And didn't even have to try.