Broken Wings
Based on the (made up) thoughts of an assassin facing a death penalty in Gondor and how she deals with it! Story came to me after English assignment last year.
Black. It drips of the walls like sweet poison. I don't know why I like the black, perhaps its calming? The cool of the walls that surround me, that's a different matter. It's harsh and spiteful like the guards who stand outside my cell. Who bring me the bread that's smells of pig shit and tastes even worse. That Beat me. Torture me. It's not the pain I fear, it's the freezing cold that comes after, a cold that runs down the spine like ice freezing on rocks. That's what follows the fire of pain. A bitter cold empty feeling. The guards who bring the grubby bread, they don't know who I am. I don't belong in this country; I was a noble once, long ago. I suppose I still am. I still should be. How did it come to this?
The man in the cell opposite looks like him. I wonder if he thinks of me as I do him, not the man in the other cell, I care not for him. Caring in this place is folly. Idiotic, ludicrous, absurd even. Just like him. With his boyish smiles and charm, jet black hair at shoulder length. The moss on the walls reminds me for his eyes, dark and leafy green. It's getting dark now. I like the dark.
Was I always like this? Was I always so dirty? No, dirty isn't the right word to use, Filthy, grimy, wretched. Yes, Wretched. With my mattered hair that is way too long. Waist length. Knotted. Dull azure eyes star back at me in the pool of water in the centre of this hovel. No. I never used to be like this, maybe? How did I end up here? My fairy-tale life if it ever existed is dead. Like my past. In the depth of my mind in a harsh cold wretched dark there is a glint of gold. Gold... Is that how it began?
Green grass and green trees. Red Roses and red lilies. Blue fountains and bluer waterfalls. That was home. When I had a father. When I had a mother. The swoosh of steel through the air, the sparkle of blades in the morning sun. Familiar things a long time ago. Shouts of the commander would float up through the air. He was a bastard. I always hated him. He'd pick on me; I was the only girl on the training programme. Must be why. I never trusted him.
We would once spar for hours until the stars shone bright. He once told me that there stars where the souls of the dead. He said they watch over us, especially when we are in need. Where is my star now? She must have deserted me on that night. When the mists roll over the hills. When the sweet sugared black hid me and my sparkling sabre. The lone ranger waiting in the valley road cloaked in the shadow of death. Waiting for the next payment.
In dreams my memories return to me. He returns to me, returns to save me, from what? The day I spend laying on the straw mattress that never stops smelling of piss and rotted flesh. I wait for the torment that may or may not come. It's the day I fear. It's the days that are cruel not the nights.
There are screams coming from the end of the hall now. There are always screams coming from the end of the hall. They are like waves on a shore. Relentless. Sometimes soft other times unforgiving. There's a rat in the corner of my room. I named him Jilsy. He comes and visits during the day. He's a good listener, sits for hours you see. Just sitting. Watching and listening. Suppose he's hungry. We all are down here. Even the guards. The smell of burnt flesh is back. Jilsy blinks at me. I told him once that I never meant to come here. I don't think he did either, no one does.
He's gone now. Jilsy. Funny thing. Sweet. I would never have I'd say that about a rat. I could be mad but I don't think so. Mad people sound like old Jaqure. Always screaming. Always cussing. Always angry with one person or the next but always frightened. Jaqure not his real name. We don't say our real names. Jaqure is a name from the future Arele says. Thinking about it would good to be insane. Thinking about it my name is a vague memory.
My memories are always short like the lives of those in these cells. The guards started bringing their whores down here. It's safer Arele says. If they gat caught the get killed. They will be deader than me. I've seen the harlots come in. They never leave though. Don't know what happens to them and their fancy clothes and fresh faces. If they leave they are bruised and bleeding. I think the guards do terrible things. I think they enjoy it more than they enjoy fucking us over.
The night is black and the black is bitterly cold and stifling. The food is worse by the day and there's less of it than before. I remember the colour red dripping from my hands. I'd been painting. I'm covered in it. I'm handed a cold heavy bag and then left alone.
He was in my dreams again. Shock all over his face, he'd been asking me what I had done, what I had become. I am an artist. He said I needed saving. I need saving from this place sure. He said he'd save me. I don't know what he meant by that. I don't even know my own fate yet.
There is a little window in the cell. Ugly thing. Grey light caresses the greyer walls. If you stand on a chair you can see out the window. You can see the courtyard outside. I used to watch out of the window. Watch the executions. There's always executions, where I come from we don't kill people for their crimes. I once watched a man being brought to be hung. He wept like a child who had their toy taken away. Crowds screamed and howled at the man. He just stood there in front of the noose. They sounded like animals. Arele says they are. They are not. They are crooks, traitors and bastards. It's us in here who are the angels. The dammed.
The man swung from the rope for days. His tongue lolling a grotesque purple colour. Purple is a royal colour. Royals kill people. I had a purple dress once before I traded it for chain mail. He can't see now. The crows pecked out his eyes. It must be nice. Death. So quiet. Silent even. He's still there. Hanging. Most of his flesh is gone. His innards hang like hungry snakes. Eternity is a long time to be dead.
Smoke wheels round me. I'm in the corner of a room. This room is warm and lit with candles and hope. I'm dreaming. There are no candles in the cells. It's a tavern of some kind. A man is sat in front of me. Been in the wars. In this shits as we thieves call it. Did I steal something? His face is missing on one side burnt off. He has gold in his hand. I liked gold once. It was a very pretty thing. What I would kill for it now.
The guards came and told me I am to die. They said I painted the towns a vile colour. It was the only hint I got. I think now that black is a deadly poison. Was black the vile colour? I think of red tulips once more. Red is such a sweet colour.
I used to play games with him. We would run through the fields of red red poppies. He would play the noble and I would play the assassin. I would be hooded and he cloaked. My father would catch us sometimes. He'd beat me something rotten. Little girls shouldn't play with swords he said. It's not right he said. I never listened. Never.
There is a little cottage way up on the hill. If I escape I would like a little cottage of my own. I will kill my past stone dead. He's not coming to help. I will take a new lover soon. I heard once that death can never be a lover. I think it false.
I don't want to die. Not Yet. Not ever. They have me shackled. The lead me past the pathetic shapes of mankind. There is light at the door to the jails. A cloaked man stands at the door. Moss for eyes and jet for hair. They lead me past him. I watched him smile slightly. And he followed.
Its night out. My dark angel follows. I hear him tell the guards to leave. There are no tiger crowds roaring in rage. Only a wooden platform and a rope. The stars are veiled and so is the moon. Deathly black clouds swoop across the sky. It's time.
Up on the plat form I take steps towards the rope. I wait. He hands me a hood. It's not a normal hood. Not one to use for hanging, it's got a cloak sewn to it. My shady solder steps forward and whispers in my ear. Hands me a weapon. Why isn't anyone here to watch me dying? There is a guard of sorts sleeping in a pool of wine. Isn't red a pretty colour? He's gone as soon as I look back. I have a choice.
Black. It crawls off the walls like a bitter poison. Isn't red so sweet. The two thoughts circle one another like vultures. I look around. Nothing. Only silence. I slip on the hood. It's time to paint.
As I wander through candle light streets and dreary houses painted the same sickly white shade so that one house may have been copied and placed side by side with all its twins. I am like a ghost; a reflection that no one sees. I am the witness in the winter and the spectator of the summer. This is a land full of myth and monsters, mermaids and mystic. I am the monster to the magic. The mystic to the mermaid. One minute I'm at your door the next you are nothing but ash.
Ash. It's what we all are inevitably; unless you find a loophole and leap it into immortality. Little girls dream of a long prosperous life with a prince to sweep them off their feet but I have always found that the best fairy tales, the ones that are the most calming are the ones who hurt the most in the end.
Cobbles are thought of as picturesque, perfect little towns have cobbled streets and painted houses. This particular town is more of a city. The white city it is called. When I was a child my father brought me on business and vanished. I swore revenge for his death and ever since I have been haunting this world with my art. I come to the house of the fallen woman and inside am passion. Once I was such passionate nature but all fires I held where frozen by time. My people no longer live in joy nor do they know my existence. Like so many in this world if you live in the shadows long enough you become them.
There is a house high up in the city that only the very rich ever see. It contains far more than just riches it contains the riches of a kingdom itself. If someone was to take these riches they would surely be slaughtered for it. So why then am I thinking of liberating such fine wealth? Haven't I just escaped death?
Stairs after stairs pass by and I know I cannot turn back for I have come too far and suffered too much to let go. Knife in hand I reached the blessed doors that no one must enter and I hold out my cold stone hand pausing before opening the wooden partitioning. What if kings where rightly gods in the guise of a weaker thing? Ironic then as I stand over a frail wrinkled body to think that such a withered life form could truly be a powerful deity. If gods once created us all and we all believed and prayed to them, why am I so abandoned and alone?
Up on the sill I see him, my beloved darkened plaything. Those supernatural eyes and enchanting lips, the ears of sharp daggers surrounded by a raven's wing of feathered hair. He says nothing as I rest my blade on god's chest, driving deep into soft flesh. The man wakens with a stat and blood red flows out. Warm and sticky it plasters my hands and my angel looks sadly away. Kings it seems are not gods they can live and die like any other. My work is done and he takes me in his arms, leading me to the window. We are the lovers that no one will dare sing of. The glass vile is to my lips and my life is at an end. He takes what is left for himself and we end our days with a kiss.