heart's desire
1
Once upon a time a raven loved a prince.
She was not meant to love him, for ravens and princes cannot be, but nonetheless it ate of her breath and stung at her heart, until the thought of him consumed her very being. She could not bear the sight of his skin, the sound of his voice, the touch of his hand. What she would have done to cast aside her love! what she would have done to devour him in her torment.
One day, she came upon the prince and unthinking tore his heart out; and in eating it felt her own heart swell and burst with the fullness of her love.
What sharp sweetness, this love fulfilled. What joy in absolution.
2
Thrice she considered the ease with which she might kill him. Each time it was as he slept, arms spread like a cross, palms up, fingers curled, the rise and fall of his chest shallow and quiet. She watched him sleep and bending over him placed her fingers one by one against his neck, like wings to frame the breath in his throat. I could kill him, she thought. I could choke him. His eyelashes fluttered. She withdrew her hands.
She would not kill him.
She would.
He said her name and dreaming, turned onto his side, hair silver in the moonlight. Reaching out she touched the hair brushing his nape, and pressed a kiss where her fingers had lain.
3
"We are living in a poem," he told her. His legs dangled out the window and he arched his back, long smooth line, watching the passing of birds in the sky. "Not a story. What this is, is too tragic for prose."
She stood behind him. The heat of his back shone through the plain cotton of his nightshirt. "How does it end?"
"The poem, you mean?" He laughed, and shrugged, and lifted his palms as though to say ah, me. "Tragically," he said. "All poems do, even the ones that smile."
"How so?"
"Does it matter?" He shifted; his fingers twitched at his side.
"Come down from there--" She brushed his back.
"Don't touch me!" Grabbing the window frame he pulled away, flush against the glass, red eyes wild and lips drawn back from his teeth.
Her hand fell. "Come down," she said.
"No."
"Come down. You'll fall."
"I want to fall."
Her breath caught. "I don't want you to."
He laughed, again, and the whole of his body shook, helpless.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "It doesn't matter. I want to fall."
"Please." She held her hands out to him, stepped forward. The wind ruffled the black of her skirt. "Take my hands. Come down."
"It doesn't matter," he told her. "This is how every poem ends."
4
The light in his eyes, diminished, returned, unnatural. When she reached to touch him his skin was at turns chill and consuming in its heat. Human, raven. At the academy he was as starkly unreal as he was alone in the darkness of their room, skin like fragile tissue paper, hair like silver, spun, throat an immeasurable curving expanse of the unseen and unremembered.
"Do you love me?"
She kissed his wrist. The beat of his pulse fire against her mouth.
"I love you."
"Love me," he said. "And only me."
"If you look at anyone else," she said, touching his cheek, "I will kill you."
He smiled in the dark.
5
His face, turned to Tutu; his hands lifted as though to bring her to him.
"Don't look at her," Kraehe said, after, curled against him. "You are mine."
He dug fingers into his breast, a tight circle around his heart. "You are mine," he said.
"I am yours."
"I am yours," he said, and with his other hand he touched the beat of her heart, each fingertip a point burning against her breast. "Ah."
She touched the hand at her breast, cupped the hand at his.
"It hurts," he said. "It burns."
6
As a child she wove flowers into his hair, each blossom a stark color in the white. "Thank you," he said, solemn and sleepy-eyed.
Her heart rested swollen in her throat. "You're beautiful," she said.
"Am I?" he said.
Now, bringing flowers to the room she watched, heart beating in her throat, as he plucked each petal free and let it drop like brightly colored snow to the floor. Red, yellow, cream, littering the black rug as his fingers moved in constant unwanting apathy. She gave him a rose, the thorns meticulously pulled. He tore off a petal and ate it, and asked her if she would give him another.
7
In the night he twined himself around her, fingers sliding down her back, eyelashes low on his cheek.
"Would you eat my heart if I asked it of you?"
She stroked his nape, kissed the soft skin beneath his ear. "Yes," she said. "Anything."
"Carve it out," he whispered. His breath bit her flesh. "Tear it from me. Take it into you, devour it, it burns me."
"Anything," she said. "Anything."
His eyes fluttered and closed. "Not yet," he said. "Not yet."
Notes:
This was written August 22, 2005, in response to the same day's theme at the 31days community on livejournal: this red, red moon.
I do not own, nor do I claim to own, any of the characters, ideas, or whatevers of Princess Tutu.