Aug 8, 04
Summary: They will ask me later why I did it...and they will be just as horrified, fascinated, unsure and angry about it as I am as I ask myself the same thing. But the answer will have to come later, because I'm wondering the same thing.
AN: A slightly augmented for of the other two, but why not add a twist? Here be a sequel to a sequel. A reaction to an action. So Pretty's little sister.
--
"You did the right thing," he says once we are in the castle.
It's cold, but he does not care that I'm shaking, does not offer me a seat by the fire knowing that is not the case. The blood still itches and I'm only faintly disturbed that it is there in the first place before I remember that I've noticed it before; it doesn't seem so important anymore, not so all-consuming this time though. I can taste it, not sure which is my own and which is his (or who he is for that matter) or if there is a difference anymore. And I see it all up my arms, under my finger nails, clumping my hair into ringlets—all up my arms to the fringe of my nightgown.
Despite my shaking and silence, he insists this empty room is the place we need to be. He wants to talk.
And if there is one thing I have learned about him, in which ever carnation he is at the time, he is a vain man. He likes the attention speaking affords; he learned long ago that no one would interrupt him. I also know the little things picked up after a while that allow me something of an ease around him, not a content one, a complacent knowledge of what to expect. I know enough not to say anything while he is in a mood such as this, as does everyone else here, and I do not wish to break the reprieve I've been handed while he is so rapped up in his own hissing lullaby.
I don't hear a word he whispers.
The enchantment is gone. It left like some stowaway whose been harboring in my head for so long we both forgot it wasn't supposed to be there in the first place and I'm cold, really empty, ah, I'm hurting without its distraction. If it had been a different situation, I would have taken this time, when nothing was expected of me, to sort everything out. But, I realize something at the same time as I acknowledge that he's stopped talking with that voice, that sickening voice, and it hits me like a black wave at night.
There is nothing to sort out. Everything went to plan.
When I continue to not say anything, he is at my side. His hands are like anything against my skin at the moment and I only manage not to wince. The flinch and glare are both reflexes these days. I cannot help those.
He smiles. "You did it for me, Dove." Saying that name casually, lacing it with all the false affection and mocking pride it once held. "There will be a reward in that."
It is my turn to smirk. Or smile, or whatever it is called these days, a tick maybe. Whatever it is, it hurts; my lip starts to bleed. "The service itself wasn't reward enough? The honor of doing your bidding-- wasn't that it, a reward?" I say tilting my head towards where I feel him behind me. I cannot see his face.
"You know me, or you think you do," he says, almost gently, as if we were friends or lovers with the quietness to his voice or the brush of breath against my neck. His grip on my arm tells me otherwise. "Don't push it." And he lets me go with a shove.
When I look back, he is walking towards the other end of the room.
"I kept my end of the deal," I point out, "I had not say in the matter." There should be some sort of accusation in that, but there is none. Just the conviction of a resigned person, a tired person who has done something yet to be acknowledged, accepted on their own. Someone who only wishes it never to have happened but, knowing wishing to be less than advantageous, tries to hide that it did. So, being that person, amazed at how calm I can act at the moment, perhaps out of habit or rote or auto-pilot, I manage to stay in business mode.
I drive my point impassively.
He seems not to have heard me at all. That is merely because he is too busy conjuring up a drink.
He waves this argument away. "You had a choice, I did not force you to take his life. You are the one to bear that particular stain. Judges do not care for influences." He added before turning back to his drink. Yet again, he offers me none. I wouldn't have accepted.
I wonder if that is why he did not ask, because he knew me so well, or if that is how all people would've reacted. If it is through personal experience that he knows all the right buttons to push, if he is doing this, aiming straight at me, or just remarking old dartboards. I wonder if I want it to be because he knows he can, not because of something else.
It's hard to think. Someone is yelling, something is hurt. He cannot say with all honesty that it is coming from the surrounding area, though he may hear it as well, because we both know it's not coming from outside. I almost want to laugh but I know that's not the best thing to do right now, I'd cry, it'd make me go insane after awhile, it'd make me remember and I don't want to remember. Because the half-remembered things that keep coming up are things that I'd rather forget. Half invisible figures underwater that you can investigate only by touch, things that sting.
I try to ignore the image of him back there, how I couldn't see him even then. How I'd lost control and how I'd loved that, how I'd loved him for that. How I'd loved them both for it. The game, the yells, my name, his name, blood. The clang of metal and pleas for understanding and something else. How I almost heard that boy, nearly listened to him, and how the only sane moment came with his last breath and how I still managed to smile. How I turned to him after.
This happened an hour ago? I did that? Me?
I didn't do it for you, I think at him, not knowing what it was but believing it all the same. The sword gleams lustily from its new spot on the mantle over the fire, still freshly painted in ruby. I think it at him knowing he could pick that thought up if he were looking, he could see I was feeling , really feeling, if he wanted to.
They will ask me later why I did it and they will be just as horrified, fascinated, unsure and angry about it as I am now, asking myself the same things. I just know "for him" will not be my answer then because it isn't my answer now. But at the moment the answer will have to come later because I'm wondering why myself. I'm wondering if I want to know.
But the half-remembered, half-forgotten things are a distraction in a way the enchantment was not; they may come up later and spill their tale when I have time to care, but right now is the time for things I know. And I know I made this deal.
But it's so hard. It's so hard not to see those eyes staring accusingly, wonderingly when I close my own. It's nearly impossible to forget the thrill, the feeling of my own body apart from myself and wondering if I cared. Because I will wonder, I know, why I wouldn't mind. It's getting harder and harder not to hate him for that, harder to act it.
"I gave you my word," I say as a retort or a reminder, I'm not sure, I'm not even sure if I meant it to sound angry in a halting way or restraining way. It comes out all the same I guess. And it's not like he heard me.
When he looks up at me it is as if he's surprised I am still there, or that I said something at all, but he keeps looking for a while before speaking and when he does I am furious, nearly all at myself. "You did," he agrees, "and I took it. Your friends are safe now, so you have nothing more to say."
He looks so smug in his "throne". So comfortable after what just happened, with his game and with his "prize". I want to take the challenge he just presented, I want to prove him wrong because I know what he's thinking, that he can keep me here, that he could've even without this arrangement from hell, but I don't because giving into that challenge would prove nothing but my own ignorance. I want to scream, which proves I'm still semi-human, just a little, to let off steam.
I want to cry, miraculously. Everything is building up, has been building up for a while now, and the tears are so close to the surface now they are bruising the skin around my eyes. I want to take it back, everything, all of it. I don't. I want to forget. I want to remember why. Why. Why? Because I can see how, I can taste how, I can remember how.
I want to blame him. But as he sits there sipping his drink and as he salutes me over the rim of the glass, I just shake
And he does not offer me a seat by the fire, knowing that is not the case.