I do not own American Horror Story: Freak Show.
But this isn't about the freak show. This is a love story.
In the Absence of Light, Darkness Prevails
Little by Little
Elsa was inconsolable for days.
She would not eat, she could not sleep.
She refused to leave the bed but to attend to the most basic of toiletry functions.
She refused to even look at her wooden legs, resorting back to the dusty wheelchair to move about when she must.
Otherwise she lay much as she had when Massimo had first cared for her, bereft of life or care or desire to live on.
She eventually managed to relay her story to him as she lay shivering in his strong arms.
And then she would not speak, would not so much as hear, of revisiting the outside world.
Massimo worried for her and fretted as she sank further and further into abject despondency.
She did not seem to be 'throwing a tantrum' as the Americans would say.
Or vying for attention.
She simply seemed traumatized to her very core by the notion that one of her torturers walked the same streets as she.
Or could look at her and not recognize the woman from whom he had torn the very living flesh.
Massimo Dolcefino saw his love, his light, begin to wither and die again before his very eyes.
A year and some months.
Elsa had come so far during that time, back from the very brink of death.
And now it seemed she had slipped backward and Massimo despaired of ever bringing her back.
And it set a dark seed deep within his soul.
He ruminated, chewed upon it in the darkest corners of his mind.
He would, one day, track down each and every one of them.
And kill them all.
He would do it.
He.
First, he must revive his Elsa back to the life she so desperately deserved. So that she might rise up once more and continue stretching out toward the world.
Then, when she was able and willing to be independent, he would send her out before him to a safe land where she would not be touched.
And he would seek his vengeance for what they had done to her.
He was a very patient man. A woodworker by practice must be.
And so he resolved to wait for the opportune moment to avenge his beloved.
And when that occasion came, he would take his time.
And make the monsters suffer.
Though it could never equal the suffering his beloved had endured.
Or the suffering of watching her relive it over and over again, trapped within her own mind.
For now, he resolved to coerce her to eat something. Anything.
It had been days.
"We are leaving Berlin, cara mia."
She did not respond. He had carried her out on the balcony, quite against her will, to sit in the sun as he had done when she had first been brought to him.
In hopes to revive her once more.
"I have written to a contact there who has a loft that will be suitable for us."
His efforts seemed to be in vain.
She now lay, motionless and eyes closed in defiance of the world around her.
"We leave in two days."
He knelt by her side, calloused hand stroking her face.
"Elsa, please. Open your eyes and look at me."
She did, just a little, squinting in the grey afternoon light. Her eyes were hollow, empty brown orbs that looked upon a haggard man full of worry and care.
For her.
"Elsa, they will not be there. Those monsters. You will be free. You will be safe."
Her eyes filled with tears and her face pinched. Her lips trembled as she pressed them together in an effort to keep from breaking apart.
"How do you know?"
It was a question for which he had no answer.
Munich was different than Berlin.
It was still a city, a German city.
But it was smaller, populated with less citizens.
It was a heavily Nazified area but Massimo took no notice of this.
The Nazis were everywhere, there was no escaping the growing machine of Adolf Hitler without leaving the continent completely.
And though Massimo had the idea in the back of his mind, the notion of achieving the absolute freedom he sought for Elsa, he knew she must be healed enough in mind to undertake it first.
And so, to Munich.
With Elsa, his carpentry accoutrements, and his growing hunger for revenge.
The change in scenery helped Elsa as Massimo had hoped that it would.
She gradually began to revive, little by little.
One morning, she asked for a mirror and brush to attend to her hair.
Wishing to tread slowly, Massimo brought them to her without attempting to force her to rise on her own to get them.
On a sunny afternoon, she asked if there was a balcony in their new dwelling.
There was not.
One evening when hunger visited her, she hesitantly requested a bowl of ribolita and he provided it for her.
Finally, she once again attached her wooden legs and used them to move about the apartment.
She began to live again, little by little.
Massimo remained vigilant over her.
As he always had done.
She walked on the arm of her carpenter, her savior, her lover, Massimo Dolcefino.
They traveled the city of Munich, talking quietly, observing the majestic architecture.
The imposing Isartor City Gate.
Elsa had never been brought to her knees in fear and terror there.
The stunning Altes Rathaus.
Her tender flesh had never been chewed up by a chainsaw beneath its magnificent clock tower.
The grand Nymphenburg Palace.
She had never swallowed back her grimace of distaste and disgust as she made men suffer dark, forbidden delights within its opulent rooms.
The city held lovely new sights for them to admire and appreciate.
But there were also Nazis.
Everywhere.
Marching stiffly, guns against their shoulders at the ready, faces blank and empty of humanity.
Mindless drones at the beck and call and ultimate control of the fanatical, oddly mustached Adolf Hitler.
And it unsettled her.
Not because she particularly cared for the Jews or the gypsies or the gays.
But because the grim presence of the Nazis was a constant, dark reminder of the growing threat of war and destruction.
And the oppressive air that hung over them in a land once rich with history and pride.
Our Massimo is becoming more haunted now by Elsa's setback. And we know where that path leads, don't we? *sighs*
But hey, another light few chapters before that, yes? :)
Thanks to brigid1318, YellowBrickQueen, Mango Marionette, and GG (I love that you made that connection and understood what I have been trying to convey in relation to Elsa's psyche, you're fantastic!) for your stellar reviews.