Genevieve holds her near frozen leg from her painful ride on The Grim Reaper's steed, Despair. The horse was intimidating to her, looking to have rotted for years with it's decomposing skin and bone. It's face bare of any muscle, leaving only its foggy jade eyes and grinning dark skull to remain. Glowing smokey-green flames are a blossoming substitute for it's mane and tail and dance hazily about it's hooves.
Death, already set on the soulless animal's back, held out his hand to help her onto the intricate spike encrusted metal that serves as it's saddle. She grabbed the palm that completely consumed her soft, skinny hand, but the flames that she had hoped would not scorn her did. The warhorse denies her aboard and bucks backward as she put her right boot on the stirrup. Genevieve swings over the flames on the horses legs. Her left leg grazed the fires that, strangely, weren't hot at all. Nonetheless, they still caused a grave amount of pain. One slightest contact felt like liquid nitrogen slashing across her limb. The icy fires would have frostbitten her to a swollen ink black if it weren't for her armor. The below-zero temperatures instead freeze burned her skin raw and with no potions left on her or her collaborator. Leaving the dead woman to writhe in her pain as she hears the tragic story of how the Apocalypse wrongfully came to Earth and his brother, War, was framed for it.
"Listen to me, child, don't act like this. . ."
"You shut your mouthless face, Reaper! My fucking world is dead, I have every right to act like this!" Genevieve snaps, poisonous tears flowing down her pained face from the mental and physical turmoil. All of this unfolding as they both stood in front of the final Dead Lord's tomb. Her face then fades blank and her eyes slender, "No... You're lying to me."
"Genevieve." He groans irritably.
"No!" The soul's denial sharply kicking in."Why do you have this... This hard on for messing with me?! " Genevieve instigates angrily. "Is this over me slashing your arm or something? Cause that was just one time!" She under exaggerates and Death rolls his eyes.
"You must heed my words Dead One, your world is no more than you are, or the rest of this forsaken realm. You must believe that I speak the truth."
"Oh, shove it with your truth," Genevieve barks tiresomely with her middle finger raising upright towards the horseman. "You talk like you've been speakin' of it this whole time." Her hand calms, as does her tone that turns sharply into sarcasm, "I mean, your first one was a promise to protect me, but that was full of it since all you've done is watch me get hurt just to, you know, 'see how long I'd last.' I mean..." She pulls the talisman from underneath her layers, "Do you even want this thing anymore? 'Cause it seems you'd prefer more to make my life even more fucking miserable."
Death didn't avoid Genevieve's look in time, the eye contact from her is near unbearable for him. A look of having absolutely no trust and only betrayal, as if he were the one who threw her in that dark room and left her for dead. To make things worse, she is even threatening to break off the deal. Looking about ready to break the amulet to pieces before his dark amber eyes.
"If I wanted to make your existence miserable, I would have let that stalker slowly eat at your limbs and save your head for last." He says disturbingly calm, "Or I would have watched that soldier beat you until you were coated in your own blood with all of your puny bones snapped. But I have done no such thing." He walks past his protected to the entrance of the tomb and holds the door open for her. His voice shifts to more of a flat growl. "Feel fortunate you have come across someone so kind and merciful as I." Genevieve follows through with a limp in her step, looking at Death in the eye from the corner of her sights.
"That's what I thought."
As the same as before, Death does all of work as Genevieve hides and keeps away from the ghouls. But she has grown sluggish. The mortal has trouble running and is a bit dazed. Her symptoms getting worse the farther they progress. The stinging and groaning in the pit of her stomach grows heavier as she limps. Death finally notices when a skeleton swipes it's sword on her left side. She lets out a shriek and thuds to the ground. She holds her head and waits smiting that never comes.
A sound of metal pierces though the wind and a shower of bones fall upon her instead. Before she could raise her neck, something scoops her from the ground quick enough to make her tired body jump in the air.
Genevieve suddenly has her cheek pressed against Death's pectoral. His coarse scent seeping into her small nose, inches away from the sharp glass dug deep into his blue skin. She sits surprisingly comfortable on Death's left arm that holds her gently. Her tiring pony eyes escalate up to the cracked bone mask that were once certain to lack any kindness to display.
"We've been traveling for a long time. And I am aware of human necessities for survival." He acknowledges. "But I cannot have you rest just yet. I must make sure that it's safe." Genevieve nods but doesn't break her glare at the mask that appears to be showing some sort of compassion.
"As I wouldn't exactly..." Death sighs. "Fancy you getting hurt again."
Her slightly full lips turn to an upward curve, knowing that underneath the realism in his words and bluntness in his tone, there is the smallest note compassion, even worry. Nestled so subtly underneath it all, but loud enough for the cradled girl to catch. Or at least that is what she believes she is catching, she is not entirely positive.
Nevertheless, her body relaxes, sinking into the space between his muscles, feeling like she hasn't been able to relax in decades. Her breaths lulling, taking in the unrefined yet, somewhat homely and rugged scent on his skin. Her baggy eyes rest but she does not slumber. For she knows that this forsaken tomb will not grant them any sort of pause on their journey.
"What was your purpose in existence, human?" Death inquires, gazing down at Genevieve's embroidered animal ears.
"Nnwhuh?" The leopard- eared redhead grunts, muffling through her hood and his chest.
"You called yourself pretty expensive in life and charging more extensively when it came to unmentionable people. So I'm asking, what did you do in life?" Genevieve's tiresome eyes scarcely creak open, then shut just as slow.
"Musician." Genevieve groggily replies.
Death's lips part behind his disguise to ask more, but the sound of multiple legs crawling along the wall before them has him keep his questions to himself. Eight heavy, sharp legs crawl frantically along the ancient catacombs, heavy rocks falling, failing to hold up the great weight of the tarantula's abdomen. Genevieve snaps awake at the sound of it's warning shriek that vibrates the thin cliffs, causing them to slightly crumble. Death finds a slot in the wall where a skeleton lay in memorial undisturbed. He drags it out of it's spot with his foot and kicks it, bones messily splaying across the ground, it's insignificant remains falling off the cliff. Death places Genevieve in the now vacant plot. Death swiftly turns to the Dead Lords, quietly eager for their next order. "Both of you are to guard and care for this girl until my return."
"Yes, my Lord," They bow and agree in a mirror image of each other.
"Where you goin'?" Genevieve's head peeps out of the catacomb watching the executioner follow the giant spider's path. Fingertips holding the end of the shallow ceiling as she wonders.
"I must take care of an arachnid problem." He retorts gruelingly, "But not to worry, mere mortal, you will know if I'm dead. For the Dead Lords will no longer be under my control, and will probably kill you." Genevieve gulps looking at the two, still kneeling before their master even after his leave. Phariseer's grip on his ax tightening at Death's truth. Hopefully it was not a promise. Genevieve still relaxes herself enough to drift into her mind and slumber in the cramped and disturbed memorial.
Genevieve's eyes slowly open in a half slumbering state, hearing the faint sound of screeching that no human could make, being swiftly snuffed out with a thud and vibration of heavy steel. Finally ending with the sound of cackling flames and she indulges into the smell of smoke and newborn embers.
"Smells good. . ." She murmurs, her conscience returns into the black of her thoughts once again.
"Arise, human." Judicater orders. Genevieve groans but complies. Her eyes crack open in the smallest slits, then practically bulge out of her skull in an instant.
She crawls from the narrow shelf in the wall and quickly sits up, "Hello, beautiful!" Complimenting a familiar green bottle of foulness that she desperately wishes to know the street name for. A cinnamon- cream hand swipes it and turns the cap in one move. Cocking her head back a to take big swig of the miracle potion as if it were vodka. Her head shakes and she smiles from the dissipation of pain on her frostbitten leg. Her stomach then makes itself known once again with another growl, she is still hungry.
A large, overly flambeed beetle shived with a burnt stick through it's guts protrudes from the ground next to where the bottle stood. It looks disgusting, the bug's once purple complexion is entirely black and shriveling. She looked up to the two corpses holding their earlier positions like statues. As if they never went and got this meal for her. "Thank you." She smiles softly, the two fail to answer. They merely kneel, facing the small fire erected from old wooden armor and torches. "At least this means Death didn't off himself out there." Genevieve says in her mind as she pulls the one piece bug -kebab out of the ground.
"I don't understand," She admits to the soldiers, "I know I've kicked the bucket and I've accepted that." Fingernails dig in between the exoskeleton of the insect, "If anything, I embraced my death when it came." She exposes the jelly- like meat hidden inside. The corpse's face twists as her stomach contorts with disgust, but her finger scoops out a small glob. "So why am I not like you? Or one of those floaty souls?"
"We are not here to answer your inquires." Judicater says without feeling, "Our lord only ordered us to tend to your well being, nothing more."
"But-"
"Nothing more."Phariseer stresses.
She frowns solemnly, taking the pulp into her mouth. She hums with a grin from the taste of sweet, fatty steak layering over her tongue. Quickly gulping down the rest of the warm meat inside until only a licked clean shell remains.
". . . Thanks again." The stuffed girl acknowledges to the rigor mortised statues. She retreats back into her slot in the stone wall, using her forearm as a pillow. She pulls her cat- ear- embroidered hood over her eyes and quickly falls back asleep.
"My Lord, you have returned." Phariseer bows respectively along with his fellow Dead Lord.
"Was that not what you were expecting?" Death asks. "How is the girl?"
"She is fed and her wounds have been attended to as well." Judicater reports.
"Good."
". . . Permission to advise, my lord."
"Permission granted." Death allows, Phariseer fumbles through his words, "This girl you have taken under your wing, you do not plan on bringing this woman onto the Eternal Throne, are you?"
"I do. Your king must hold some knowledge of why this girl didn't reach The Well of Souls. Why?" Death's tone lowers, "Do you question my strategies, mercenary?"
"I would never muse of such treason, My Lord," Phariseer bows passively, Judicater helps support his brother in arms, "My brother only asks of this for the girl had never passed through the Lord of Bones'es suffering. It will not sit well with the other souls on the Eternal Throne. They will grow... Jealous."
"What do you mean, jealous?" Death's eyes squint at his final word.
"This mortal may be as destroyed as we, but she does not have the scars that we bear openly." Phariseer looks down to the slumbering girl. "I even hold some sort of hatred for the human."
"Is there anything else that I may know about?"
"Yes, Master." Judicater answers. The three hear muffled sobs and whining and look down to the lanky dead girl, overcome by the nightmares that visibly torture her. She shivers in a layer of cold sweat. Her shut eyes twitch from the horrifying illusions they believe to perceive, making enough tears to make a two inch puddle in front of her tightening face. Her voice cracking from the sobs laced in her pleas.
"The girl experiences torment in her slumber." Judicater says.
"Why are you doing this . . ? You're hurting me." She weeps softly in her sleep. "Stop. . ."
The Reaper sighs and picks up the girl from her resting place and holds her like a sleeping child in his arms. With arms draped over his shoulders and her hood pressing lightly against his cheek. She dampens the executioner's neck with bitter tears as they walk to the tomb's exit.
"Please. . . Just let me go home."
I just want to go home. . .
*Sigh* So it appears that its 100 degrees out, I am ill, and my boyfriend is away in Cape Cod all during the entire time of my week suspension from my job.
So you know what that means kids?
BEDRIDDEN WRITING TIME.
YEHHHH *kef* *kef*
So I'm going to be writing ALLOT more than initially planned.
Once again feel free to tell me your lovely (or shitty) thoughts or feelings.
Or don't.
I aint your mamma.
~Lexi