She Breathes Sin (she dreams of angels)
Summary - They told her that she was free from the Darkness. They lied.
Disclaimer - I do not own the characters or anything involved with the Reign fandom. No claim intended.
She still hears it.
It's always quiet, because she's always alone, but just when she's feeling lucky, when she sleeps, she hears the snarls that echo through her head like a symphony of damnation. She listens to the sounds of something that's not quite human, not quite normal, but so very real, creeping towards her. Something real and dark and void and so wrong that she wants to cover her ears and run, run, run until everything is silent and she can hear nothing besides what is left of the heart that violently clings to life inside of her chest.
There are times in which she'll be getting ready for bed, or pulling on her leather slippers to head into the morning light, and she'll hear screams coming from all around her. And she's heard her voice enough times to identify it. Knows that the screams belong to her, and that they were all very real. Screams of terror and hopelessness because for a moment there, in the cave, she thought she'd never escape.
No matter how valiantly she tries, she never stops hearing the creeks of feet and the slashing of claws and the blood-curdling screams that spilled from her own bloody red lips. She thinks she'll always hear it.
(she prays for silence)
.
.
She still sees it.
When her eyes close for longer than a blink, she's back in the cave that imprisoned her for God only knows how long. She's back to the pitch black air and the damp rocks and the metal shackles that stab mercilessly into her skin and cause the bones in her wrist to snap. She's back to seeing glares of sunbeams spill into the darkness, to seeing teeth that are so razor-sharp and misshapen that they cannot be human. She's back to Hell. A Hell that she wouldn't wish on her worst enemies.
Her memory has never been anything spectacular. She would arrive late to engagements and she would forget where she left her ball gowns and she had a hard time remembering names sometimes, so the vividness in which she recalls the cave is nothing short of petrifying. She's starting to think that she'll never be able to forget, and that hurts - physically, mentally, it aches - because she'd give everything she has to forget.
The walls are white in her chambers, but she's never taken notice, because when her eyes land on the walls, it's like a movie is projecting for her only. A horror movie. A movie that she knows much to well. And she can see herself running when she pays enough attention. She can see herself running for her life when she finally found herself free all of those months ago. Her body is not unscathed, she is not safe, but she runs.
(she blinds her eyes with skeletal fingers)
.
.
She still feels it.
It's like a disease. It's thick and poisonous and it swims. The Darkness is underneath her skin and it has been since her blackened feet raced around the forest and the light splashed her face when she made it out of the cave.
Nostradamus had been convinced that the Darkness had consumed all the light inside of her soul and corrupted her once beautiful brain, but he couldn't have been any more wrong. She knew, she'd always known, that there was no light to be swallowed up or stolen. The Darkness had chosen her because it knew that she would not fight something of which she already felt flowing through her veins every morning she awoke to. And It was right.
As much as she wished to believe otherwise, there was no virtue left inside of her. She had been tainted much too strongly.
She could not be saved.
She could feel the hellfire with every breath she stole.
(she soaks in dirty water to rid the marred evidence from her skin)
.
.
She still serves it.
She sins just by breathing. Something as dark and as demoniac as her isn't supposed to exist in this world. Shouldn't be allowed to breathe. So which each inhale, with each bloody red smile and touch and footstep and laugh, she sins, she serves the Darkness.
Those around her aren't aware of the pretty, twisted thoughts that spiral through her head. Her friends - if she can even call them that - don't see what she sees, they don't hear what she hears, and her lover - her sweet, sweet Nostradamus - he doesn't feel what she feels when she steps into the sunlight by his side.
They told her that she was free from the darkness.
They lied.
(she breathes sin; she dreams of angels)