2: SCARRED HEARTBEATS
(10.Nov.06)
So this chapter is even shorter than the last at just over 300 words. I wasn't intending to continue Poisoned Kisses...it was supposed to be standalone... But then a PLOT started to develop as I grew bored in class. I don't actually do anything in school, you see. Just sit there, wishing I spoke Chinese. le sigh So, yes. If the lack of names bothers you, I'm sorry, but I do it upon occassion, for artistic reasons. The "she" refered to is the young woman from the first chapter. "He" is someone new, also an OC. I like OCs. Oh, and now I'm depressed, because I remembered that tomorrow is one of my favorite male OCs of all time's deathday. Damn it. Er...that OC is for my novel and has never been...directly...used in fanfiction. He's alluded to, once I think, in my fic "Golden Eyes," but I'm not sure...it may be in the untyped part, yet... Anywho...
He was watching her.
He had been watching her ever since her initiation.
There had been half a broken heartbeat that her face had seemed to echo his own feelings perfectly. A horror known only to a few. He'd seen it just the three times since his own initiation, and of those three, two were now dead.
The Dark Lord did not look kindly upon those who went back on their sworn word to him…
He shivered at the memory.
But…
He was watching her. He'd never since seen even the tiniest glint of that sense of self, that knowledge that what they'd been promised was not what they'd been given, but he knew that it was there.
Strong, delicate fingers traced the snake in the mark on his left arm. He imagined that it even felt dirty to the touch.
I didn't really, of course, but all the same.
Hidden deep beneath his constant occluding, he remembered the night of his initiation, and what he'd done immediately after the evening's…celebrations…
His forearm still burned with the memory of his trying to scrub his skin off. After two hours of scrubbing away at the mark (he couldn't think of it as his -- it was the Dark Lord's mark, or the mark, but never his) and still feeling that horrible sense of being too dirty for words, he'd taken a knife to it. The skin of his arm was a net of scars all over -- all over, but for the mark itself. The stained skin had refused to be severed.
So he watched her.
She killed muggles, tortured mud bloods, slaughtered innocents, all without blinking an eye.
And that is how he knew she hated what she was doing. That carefully hidden lack of enthusiasm, the thing disguise of nonchalance… They were his constant reminders of the truth.
And then, three months after her initiation, he followed her back to the scene of a fortnight prior's raid, and watched her cry.
The next night he held her as sobs shook delicate shoulders.
The day after that, they began plotting…
Tadaa! Read and review people! Feed my wonderful muses cookies! They deserve a huge round of applause for actually working together on this! Angst, Angel... Take a bow, boys.