Yo!
Quick thing: I released an extra chapter last week, chapter 41, so if you feel like you're missing some context, make sure you've read that one.
In other news, this might have been my favorite chapter to write in the whole story? I'm not sure. The only one that could contest it are ones that I haven't written yet. We'll have to see if they manage it.
Anyways, let's stop wasting time, ey?
Chapter 42
Cinder had honestly expected Glynda to show up at their door earlier than she did.
It was about an hour and a half late, and some of that was likely due to the fact that Glynda had called out Emerald, brought her aside and presumably had a heart to heart with her about something or other. Cinder wouldn't know, Glynda had always been like a vice when it came to the important information about others. She would not tell a soul about the things that were important to anyone else, no matter what.
Cinder admired that about her, so she would not push to know what was going on with Emerald.
A part of her was convinced it had been Emerald, earlier in the day, that had caused the delay. But another part of her could see the way that Glynda's eyes drooped, the way that her face was slightly sunken in.
She was well and truly exhausted.
"Cinder." Glynda said, and though her face betrayed nothing, her tone told Cinder enough. "Would you mind coming to my office? I'd like to talk with you."
No delay at all. No small talk.
Glynda was upset about something. What, exactly, Cinder did not know, but she had a feeling it had to do with her in some way.
So, she nodded her head, bid her teammates – well, Mercury, who had seemed off ever since he'd arrived back in their room – farewell, and followed the woman to her office a few corridors down.
It was a long enough walk for Cinder to grow the smallest bit anxious, staring at Glynda's back as they walked. Her movements were stilted somewhat, conflicted in a way they rarely were. Glynda was a woman who walked with purpose, with confidence. Usually, the only thing to break that assuredness was Cinder herself, the multiple troubles that came with the relationship between the two of them.
And that seemed to be what was happening here, although perhaps to a more extreme extent.
They entered into her office in silence, and immediately, Glynda set about making them drinks. It was a tick of Glynda's that Cinder had once not thought much of, but nowadays, she wondered if it wasn't an action taken to reduce nerves. If moving her hands, keeping her mind occupied with something simple, almost monotonous, didn't help to alleviate some of her concerns.
Although perhaps such thoughts were meaningless.
"So." Glynda eventually spoke, her voice carrying within it a hint of... not anger, but certainly discontent. "You are going to accept Ozpin's offer?"
It was said in an almost accusing tone, of all things. Cinder hadn't at all expected it. Honestly, if anything, she'd expected Glynda to be supportive, as she usually was. And yet...
She was looking at Cinder with her brow furrowed, with her lips set in a thin line, and with the hand that was not currently holding her tea balled into a fist at her side.
"...I said I would deliberate on the decision, didn't I?"
Glynda stared at her for a while after that. Perhaps three or four full seconds. It didn't sound like a lot, but it had an unnerving effect upon Cinder.
And, seemingly, having not found what she was looking for, Glynda let out a mirthless laugh. She went over to the bar in the kitchen and leant her body atop it, setting down her mug so that she could run her hands through her hair, over her face, lifting her glasses and massaging the bridge of her nose.
It was rather clearly a sign of distress. Cinder stepped forward, wanting to do something about that, but–
"You're not considering it, are you?"
Cinder was confused. "What?"
Glynda just shook her head, sighing with more exhaustion than Cinder had heard from her in a long time.
"You pretended like you were considering not taking it. The Fall Maiden's power." Glynda explained, and Cinder felt rooted to the spot. "To Ozpin, you pretended, to the rest of the inner circle, you pretended, but... I could tell. You'd already made your mind up, regardless of what Ozpin told you, hadn't you?"
...Cinder wasn't entirely certain why that would be such a grand mistake, as Glynda seemed to think it was. She was staring at her hard, and briefly, Cinder considered trying to lie her way out of this, to say that she really was thinking on what Ozpin had said, but...
She did not like to lie to Glynda. This was perhaps the only person she'd ever met to whom she could tell the truth. The fact that she still hid things from her, terrible, horrible things, weighed on her every time they spoke.
It only got worse the more the days ticked by.
So, Cinder decided to be honest.
"...I had."
Glynda let out a shuddering breath at that, and it was a thing filled with sadness and anger both. She did not sound surprised, however. She had clearly already known the way that Cinder had felt.
"...May I ask why?"
Cinder couldn't exactly answer 'because I've sought that power for my entire life', so she was going to have to make something up.
...Or...
She couldn't give the exact details, but it wasn't like she couldn't use her reasoning, was it?
That would do nicely.
"I have rather often found myself in a position where I had no agency in my life." Cinder began. "Where I have been at the mercy of another, or been taken advantage of, or denied that which I desire. I have, because of that, always desired strength. Always desired power. What Ozpin is offering to me is... it is a power beyond what many could ever hope to possess."
Glynda seemed to actually take that answer well. Cinder hazarded a guess that the reason why was because Cinder's own reasoning made sense to her.
"So that's it? Just... power?"
Cinder hesitated a moment, but eventually nodded her head.
Glynda watched the motion before letting out a rattled breath. She took another drink of her tea, and then another. When she finally spoke again, her voice was small, yet was clearly angered, practically furious.
"...In my time with you, Cinder, I have had to rethink an awful lot of my views about this world."
It was such a heavy opening line that Cinder found herself unable to say a thing, or to even think anything on it.
"I have found myself angry, and upset, and livid at the way that this world is to those who inhabit it. Of course, I am not immune to have having had these thoughts before. About how horribly unfair it can be. How selfish its people can be. How ultimately, those who deserve to face justice actually facing it can be few and far between. How often good goes unrewarded, and evil unpunished. I don't think anyone could fully escape from such thoughts."
Cinder had certainly thought such things before.
"...I understand that the life you've had to live is a terrible one. That the opportunities you've been given have been miniscule. That by trying to become a huntress, you sought perhaps the only option available to you to try and re-right the course of your life. I also understand that you simply see the world differently than I do. That you see... that you see yourself differently than I do."
Cinder sat down on the opposite side of the bar from Glynda. The two of them were perhaps two feet apart, separated by the bar that split the two of them down the middle.
"When I look at you..." Glynda accentuated the words by actually doing so, gazing up at her and smiling melancholically. "I see such a beautiful and wondrous person. I see someone who has been hurt, and taken advantage of, and had the world's worst unleashed upon her, and yet someone who has come out the other side with such strength of will... such undeterred spirit... and it amazes me. It inspires me. You inspire me."
Cinder had no idea what she was supposed to say to that. She was dumbfounded, well and truly, staring at Glynda's smiling face without a clue in the world as to how she was meant to respond.
"And yet... I can tell that we do not both see such things. That when you look at yourself in the mirror, you do not see the things that I see."
"...I don't know what you mean."
Glynda just laughed, but it was a morose thing.
"I can tell because back in that vault beneath Beacon, standing in front of the last Maiden, and having been told that to have that power granted to you, you could die... it deterred you for moments."
Cinder blanched.
"Moments, Cinder. Perhaps two or three seconds you hesitated. Ozpin recognized such things. He thought you were genuinely considering it, but I saw it play out on your face. And I knew that you'd made up your mind. That despite the risk, you were going to wait until the soonest possible opportunity you'd be given to take the power, and then take it."
It was the truth. It was the truth, so then why did Cinder feel caught, as if admitting to such a thing would be disastrous?
"...You were faced with the possibility of your entire self... of your entire personality being erased." Glynda took a haggard breath, and Cinder's eyes widened as she spotted honest to gods tears building within her counterparts eyes. "And yet when I looked into your eyes I could tell that that didn't mean anything to you! That you were entirely willing to chance it! Can you... Do you know how much that... how much that hurt me? To see that? To see you so willing to sacrifice who you are for some nebulous... power?"
Cinder was on the backfoot. She had no idea what she was supposed to say. No, worse than that, she had no idea why Glynda was getting on her case like this. So, what if she wanted to chance something like that? At the very worst, she would be erased, and then...
And then what? She would be gone. It wasn't like she would have to worry about whatever happened to her body after she was dead.
She felt herself growing the smallest bit angry now herself.
Glynda was supposed to be there for her. She was supposed to support her when she was uncertain, or unused to things. And yet now, when Cinder had made up her mind, she doubted her!?
She wanted to sneer, but held back.
"So, what?" She said, and even though it sounded so callous, even though it sounded so hurtful, she said it anyways. "Why does it matter what happens to me?" She reiterated her earlier thoughts. "Suppose I do have my personality overwritten. I doubt I'd be around to care about such a thing."
If anything, that statement was the most powerful one uttered in the conversation thus far. Cinder could tell by the way that Glynda's eyelids pulled back, by the way tears spilled down her face. By the way she was staring desolately at Cinder like the entire world had been pulled out from under her.
And then Glynda steadied herself. Through what seemed some herculean strength of will, she stilled her quivering lip. She held back her tears. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, shaky as it was. She wiped at her eyes and took a moment to breathe.
And then she looked again at Cinder.
It was an unfamiliar feeling that coursed through her breast, then. She knew that she had said something wrong, but she didn't know what. She knew that she had hurt Glynda with her words, but she did not know why.
And then Glynda shook her head, and asked, "Why can't you understand that I'm worried about you!?"
Cinder froze, caught between a million things to say, and just… watched Glynda's face.
She did not stop. No. She kept going.
"I... I know that you have a hard time understanding these things. I do. I really... I try and be patient with you. I try and be cautious, and not push you, but in this single instance, I must break that. I must be completely forthright when I tell you Cinder that there is not a single soul on Remnant I care about more."
Cinder's breath was sapped from her like she'd been thrown into a vacuum.
"You are beautiful. Your eyes are like shining amber. Your skin is smooth alabaster. Your hair delicate and fine as silk. But even if all of those things were not true, Cinder, you make me feel more than I have in my life. You bring out parts of myself that I did not know were there. I find myself wanting to see you even when we've been apart so short a time."
That...
Glynda felt those things, too?
"So I need you to understand this, most of all." She was a single step from bawling, that Cinder could tell. She was on the cusp of losing it, but she held fast. And... and it was for her sake, wasn't it, that she did so. It was all for Cinder.
...No one had ever...
"You are more than some power." Glynda practically shouted. "You are more than some role, or some title, or... you are more than what you can provide. You are inherently valuable, and... No. More than that, you are someone who I care about so very, very much. And hearing that you do not value yourself, that you think the worst-case scenario, of you essentially dying, is worth considering for two or three seconds, is essentially a footnote is... It breaks my heart, Cinder. To hear that you're so... so terribly hurt. Because I want so badly to help you see just how precious you are to me. I want you to look at yourself and see those same things."
Cinder looked away. She couldn't... she couldn't bear to meet Glynda's eye.
...
Were... did normal people not...
Did normal people worry about such things so much? Did they consider their own lives so precious? Did they think that... did they think themselves decent, or good, or worth something?
Cinder thought she deserved things. But she had never once been so foolish as to think herself worthy of them. No. She fought, and bled, and stole. She did not earn. She was not given.
...Ozpin was to give it to her, wasn't he? The power she'd always sought. That which she had devoted her entire life to obtaining.
He had thought her worthy of it.
...
Cinder, she...
What was she supposed to make of that? What was she supposed to make of any of this? This entire conversation? Her head hurt. It hurt more than it ever had in her life. Like someone had taken a match and set her mind ablaze.
She was thinking things that she had never stopped to consider before. Things that she had never wanted to consider before.
A memory passed through her head, then. Something unbidden. Unwelcome. But in that moment it felt an appropriate thing to consider.
...
She decided to share it with Glynda.
"...When I was a girl, serving in the The Gl–" She cut herself off. She didn't... she had almost... "Serving in the lobbies of where I was a slave... I... every day was the same. Every day was... it was hell. I was talked down to, and abused, and made to think nothing of myself. And eventually... I suppose it occurred to me that if they always said it, if no one thought differently aside from me, then... how could they be the ones who were wrong?"
Glynda sucked in a breath, but she didn't interrupt.
...She did reach across the bar, and place her hand in Cinder's.
And Cinder took that hand and squeezed with as much power as lied within her.
"That went on for... four years? Five? I'm not even entirely sure how long it was I served there. It felt like forever. I think I thought it would be forever. That I would serve in those halls and then, one day, I would die. I think... I accepted that as truth. As fact. There was no escape, no way out."
"But then... one day, when I was cleaning out the rooms I had been assigned for the evening... I found something laying amongst the dirtied sheets. It... it was a knife."
Cinder could still remember it. She could still remember finding it inside of the bedside table, likely left behind by whomever had rented the room that evening. She had always been told that anything she found that was left behind was to be given to the Madame. Not to try and find its owner, of course, but to be taken and sold, if it were valuable enough.
But... that was a separate tangent.
"It was an ornate thing. Decorative, perhaps, but I don't... I didn't think about it very much. All I could focus on was that... that that knife was, in its own way, an alternative. I remember picking it up, and it being so terribly, terribly heavy. Heavier than anything I'd ever held. My hands were shaking. My breaths were quick. And yet... I turned the blade, so that it rested against my left breast, just over my heart."
Glynda squeezed her hand, even as she bit down on her bottom lip and breathed out through her nose, a pained motion.
"I remember thinking... would it hurt? Would it take long? Would I regret having done it when I was choking on my own blood? And... I'm not entirely sure what it was that made me put aside the knife, and sob and sob until the masters of the house found me and slapped sense into me, before putting me back to work. But... whatever it was, I..."
Glynda squeezed her hand.
Cinder was fairly sure she didn't need to say a thing. Glynda already knew.
"So... I..." Cinder shook her head. The time for stories was over. "For me, it's hard to consider that you would worry for me in a way that I do not worry for myself."
"You're… you didn't think I would worry for you?"
Cinder couldn't stand to look at her.
Glynda was silent for a moment, although her hand never left Cinder's own. Finally, after what felt like ages, but was realistically five or six seconds, Glynda spoke.
"I'm sorry." And for some reason, she was apologizing. "I didn't mean to dredge up bad memories."
"No... it's..." Cinder wasn't sure what to say, exactly. "It's painful to remember those things, but in a way, talking about them..."
"It helps?"
Cinder nodded.
Glynda seemed to calm somewhat at that notion, her previously haggard breaths evening out ever so slightly. Still, the both of them were on edge.
"I didn't mean to snap, either." Glynda said to her. "I'm just so… I keep thinking about what might happen if we transfer another's Aura into you… if you… if there were complications, if your personality were to be overwritten by hers, or even altered somehow, then I don't…"
The woman swallowed, and Cinder's stomach grew no tamer as Glynda briefly released her hand, but only so she could step around the bar, so that they were face to face. Then, she took both of her hands, and held them up in front of her.
"I don't know what I'd do. Because I don't want you to go. Not now, not ever." Glynda swallowed, before looking up at her with honest to gods' tears in her eyes. "It sounds so silly saying it aloud, but... I want you to stay here with me."
...Cinder felt something in that moment that she was certain she had never felt in her entire life.
It was... it was a strange emotion. Something that poured from her chest like the fire of the Maiden's power, and yet... somehow colder. Like an icy flame burning in her stomach. It was similar to the feeling that had once coursed through her when she'd killed Rhodes, that pounding, horrid regret, but...
This was different. It felt...
It felt good.
And it was calling to her. Demanding something of her. Over and over and over again, it rammed against the walls of her mind, giving her courage, giving her strength.
She knew what she wanted to do.
And she had never been one to resist her desires.
So, Cinder didn't hesitate.
She took a step forward, reached up, and pushed her lips against Glynda's.
...
It was only in that moment that Cinder was able to catalogue a few rather basic things about Glynda Goodwitch that had never quite been clear enough before to notice. The first was that she smelled of tea, and the kiss tasted of it, too, which Cinder supposed made sense. Where Cinder had normally hated such a thing, however, she found a tangy, bitter, but ultimately delectably satisfying taste upon Glynda's lips. It caused her to push further, to want to have more of that feeling. To know all of it.
This... whatever this was burning within her chest, this emotion that coursed through her, that made her want to push and push and push against Glynda's body with her own, until the two of them merged into one space, shared one being...
She had no idea what to make of it.
But it was wonderful.
She pushed her tongue against the entrance to Glynda's mouth without thinking, relishing in that taste along her lips, and it was only when she elicited the smallest of sounds from Glynda that she realized that Glynda hadn't so much as said a word that indicated she was alright with such an act.
She pulled away, her face crimson – such was mirrored to an even more serious degree on Glynda's face – and feeling perhaps more mortified than she ever had in her life.
More than that, though, she was terrified that she'd pushed beyond Glynda's limits, somehow upset her.
"I-I'm sorry," She stuttered. Stuttered. Her, Cinder, agent of Salem, stuttering like a teenager from her first kiss. But... but she truly was anxious. Horribly so. "I'm– I'm always so greedy, and... and I'm always just taking things without asking. I should've–"
Glynda silenced her by locking their lips together once more.
She allowed herself to fully melt into the kiss again, briefly losing herself for another five or so seconds. When Glynda pulled away – leaving Cinder entirely breathless – she was smiling down at her, with just the gentlest expression on her face.
It made Cinder feel so...
"Don't worry. You took nothing that I did not wholeheartedly want to give."
"I thought... when you made that noise... I thought I was pushing too far, or–"
"Oh. No, that was... er..." Glynda was going red again. She gave a pointed cough. "Let's discuss something else, yes?"
Cinder decided to let her escape from that particular conversation, despite Remnant's worst ever attempt to change the subject.
"What... what do you want to discuss, then?"
Glynda was still flushed – strike that, they both were – so she had expected the topic to remain light and airy. To stay within this relative calm they'd created.
It did not.
"So... if it were up to you, when would you take the Maiden's power, then?"
Cinder's eyes widened, even as she considered the thought, however briefly.
"As soon as I can."
Glynda nodded her head. "In that case... I will discuss with Ozpin. Let him know that making you wait would be pointless. If your mind is truly made up, then... then there is no reason to delay, is there?"
"...No. There isn't."
Except there was now. She wanted... she wanted to be with Glynda for longer. To stay with her, and... to feel more of whatever fire it was that coursed throughout her skin. She felt more alive than she ever had, stronger, more–
And then the Maiden's fire blazed throughout her like a reminder.
And it struck like a cathedral bell. Echoing out through her form in a pattern. It struck once, twice, and again and again, and eventually...
Eventually it struck twelve.
And the magic seemed to fade.
Because Cinder remembered just who it was she served. She remembered just what it was that laid within her skin. The parasite that lurked within her, that was the antithesis to life itself, to creation. She remembered who she was. A murderer, a thief, and a liar. She remembered what she'd come here to do. To fulfill her purpose as an individual. To make all of what she'd suffered worth something.
...
That was right...
She...
She was Cinder Fall. She had...
She could never just be Cinder, could she?
...
It was growing harder and harder, the longer she stayed here, to ever want to leave. To ever desire to break away from Glynda's side, to ever want to have to feel the emptiness of her room in Evernight, with its hard mattress, and its cold sheets, and its brimstone floors.
But...
She could not stay here. She simply couldn't.
Because she knew that if she stayed here any longer, she wouldn't be able to leave.
She was Salem's. Some part of her had understood that for a very long time. That the girl named Cinder had died that day in the snow fields of Solitas. That the cold had whisked her away to wherever the dead went, and in her place rose Cinder Fall.
And Cinder Fall did not have any choices to make. Cinder Fall could not decide what it was she wanted out of life. Cinder Fall could not change her destiny. She could only follow it, follow Salem's decree, or else the witch who'd bestowed her with magic would rip it away, and she'd go back to being that same girl, frozen in the snow, wanting nothing more than to die.
Wanting nothing more than to be free.
And then she'd gone and made a deal with the devil to try for it. And that was the thing about such deals...
The devil never played fair.
She'd been a young girl bereft of anything. And Salem had shown up for her then not out of any good will. Not out of kindness, or compassion.
But merely to acquire a pawn.
Some part of Cinder had always known that. That no matter how much she played at being a queen, she was only ever a pawn in the grand game of Ozma and Salem. That she didn't matter. That her destiny was as it had always been.
To go forgotten. To go unnoticed.
To be invisible.
...
And yet there was one woman in the entire world who had sworn to her that she would never be. That she would see her always. That she would want her by her side.
And Cinder felt a warmth flow through her entire body, alongside a horrible, wracking sob.
Glynda looked at her, horrendously concerned, but it was all Cinder could do to look up at her, with tears in her eyes, and smile.
She was so weak to this woman. She... she had to go. She had to go back to the witch who'd granted her magic, who'd granted her this opportunity to live grandly, and have it all, lest she take it from her.
Lest Glynda pay for it as she had. Lest she be shackled to Cinder forever.
Because despite her words, despite what she'd said, there was some part of Cinder that couldn't help but think that Glynda did not deserve such a fate.
She did not deserve to be tied to her.
But...
But maybe, just this once... just for tonight, she could...
"Just in case…" She whispered, and it was perhaps the most painful thing to have ever left her lips. "Just in case I… if something were to happen, and I... just in case I'm gone, and I can't see you, I want to…"
She could barely get the words out. That added up, in Cinder's mind. She had never been very good at being forthright about how she felt. How could she have been, with what she'd gone through as a child? Forced to stay quiet, and small, and meek. And yet now, she wanted to bare it all to this woman in front of her.
All of her.
She was always trying to move so quickly. Too fast. Pushing and pushing and pushing. Far beyond where she should, but...
She wanted to feel more. More of that burning feeling within her.
She reached up towards the wrapped bindings on her chest, and nimbly undid a small part. She watched as the woman across from her stared, slack-jawed, as the bandages unraveled, and fell to the floor.
There was nothing underneath.
As Glynda had said, only the smooth alabaster of her skin.
"Just in case..." Her face shivered with nerves and anticipation and everything. Because no matter how sultry she often pretended to be, no matter how in control she always feigned being...
She had never done something like this. Not with anyone.
"I want to give you something to remember me by." She spoke.
And it was the truth.
Glynda seemed to be having difficulty meeting her eyes. Her face was a bright red, and somewhere buried within her anxiety and guilt and a hundred other things, there was a piece of her feeling awfully pleased about the way that Glynda's eyes kept darting down towards her exposed chest, despite her best efforts.
"Cinder…" Glynda shook her head, trying to shake away some of the obvious desire playing about her features. "Are you– is this really... I don't want you to think that you have to–"
"Please?" She begged, and by the gods, she was begging, like some helpless little lamb, but this… "If you don't want this, tell me, and I... I'll go. But if you do, then... then please."
This was it. It had to be it. The illusion that she'd been under for the last eight or so months was crumbling, breaking all around her. The illusion that she'd always been in control. That she'd always known what she'd wanted. That she would be fine at the end of it all, and be able to walk out the other side. It was collapsing right in front of her eyes.
And even if she didn't want it to end, just wanted to stay in this little bubble forever…
It had to. She knew that.
Earlier, when she'd first learned of Ozpin's plan to give the Maiden's fire to her, she'd theorized that she could stay longer, until she could find out the location of the Relic of Choice. But now... now she understood exactly what that had been.
Only ever an excuse. Only ever a front.
She had not wanted to stay for the Relic. In fact, the Relic had only ever held meaning for Salem. Never for Cinder. She could not have cared less about such a thing.
But it was an easier thing to tell herself, wasn't it? It was easier to say she wanted to try and find the relic than to admit she wanted to spend more time with Glynda. Just a bit more time.
So she forced herself to lie. Not to Glynda, but to herself.
She'd been infatuated. That was all this was. An infatuation. Glynda's looks had drawn her in at first, that was the truth. And...
And it was nothing more than that. No. The way that Glynda listened to her like no one ever had, seemed to genuinely take pleasure in hearing her speak; the fact that Cinder liked such a thing... that meant nothing.
Likewise, the way that Glynda was caught off guard by her feelings, the almost bashful way that she herself admitted that she too was flawed, the way that she'd made Cinder feel like maybe, just maybe, she too was allowed to have faults, to be imperfect, was unimportant.
The way she treated her with kindness, and made her feel like she could be better, like she could improve and want for more... no. That too meant nothing.
The way that Emerald and Mercury looked to her not out of fear but out of a strange sense of loyalty, the way that she had gathered people around her she might, in another life, have called friends, the way that everyone seemed to think her almost kind...
Nothing. All of it was nothing.
And the feeling inside of her now, that desire to stay and forsake everything, to doom herself and potentially Glynda as well to Salem's eventual retribution... that was all desire. Lust. Nothing more.
It was just something she needed to work out of her system. Because she had to leave. She couldn't stay.
But before she did, she'd…
She'd do just that.
Work out the kink.
And as it turned out, as Glynda accepted her, kissed her once again, and things quickly intensified, herself from nearly a year ago had been wrong.
Cinder did, in fact, learn what Glynda Goodwitch's bedroom looked like.
/
Her neck is burning.
This is not a new sensation. If anything, it is one that Cinder implicitly recognizes. It is the Madame's necklace, that which she has long since used to punish her when she errs.
"Do you know what you've done to deserve this, Cinder?"
She cannot speak, but she does not know.
"You think that you deserve to be happy, don't you? That you deserve someone who will love you? Care for you?"
Cinder thinks in that moment of blonde hair. Emerald eyes. A wondrous, gentle voice. whispering lips and tender caresses and soft, so soft.
Someone who won't let her be invisible.
And the Madame laughs. It is a grating sound, like nails running down a chalkboard. Like someone taking a razer and scraping at her teeth.
And the shocks grow worse. She is barely able to maintain consciousness, let alone stop herself from screaming.
"You are such an idiotic girl. You have always been. I do not know how I could possibly make this clearer to you, but I will attempt to try."
Madame leans down in front of her. All around her, she can hear the sounds of the sisters laughing, and teasing, and mocking her. They echo their mother's statements; idiot, idiot, idiot, they cry.
"You are not worthy of such things." Madame says every word with such deliberate enunciation, as if to hammer home the point even further. "You have never been worthy. No matter what you do, you will never be worthy of it. Of her. You know that, don't you?"
She cannot speak. All she can do is nod her head, to try and tell the Madame that she does, that she knows she's nothing, and that she's always been nothing, but she can't breathe. Her vision is blackening. Spots appear in the corner of her eyes. She's a few seconds from dying outright.
Help! She thinks to cry, but cannot find a voice to do so. Someone help me!
All around her, the patrons of the Glass Unicorn pass her by. None look her way. None see anything odd about a girl being tortured to death on the floor of a hotel. None of them notice her writhing form, the screams emerging from her lips.
They do not see her.
They never have.
And Cinder remembers something in that moment. Something important.
She is nothing.
She is invisible.
She is worthle–
/
Cinder snapped awake, a gasping breath, like coming up for air after being held underwater for far too long, emerging from her.
That... that had been...
Cinder couldn't remember the last time she'd had a nightmare about the Madame, of all things. The last time she'd awoken from sleep gasping for air, trying to breathe around the lightning in her neck, trying to–
She tried to cough, but there was something stuck in her throat, and she couldn't quite manage it, and maybe it was just the air, maybe it was the fact that it felt like something was constricting her around her body, tentacles wrapped around her, squeezing, squeezing, strangling the life from her, but she couldn't breathe.
She felt panic course through her. She felt like she was being crushed. Like there were hands along her neck, choking her to death. She felt like a collar was still adorned there, pouring electricity through her veins. She felt like the siblings were laughing, laughing, laughing, despite the way she'd choked the life out of each of them, despite the way that they were dead, had been dead for years, and they shouldn't have been able to hurt her like this. She was supposed to be Cinder Fall. She was supposed to be powerful, supposed to be–
And then a hand found her own, and the world was just a little bit clearer.
"It's okay…" A voice whispered into the crook of her neck. "You're okay. You're safe. No one can hurt you. Breathe with me, okay?"
And somehow, someway, when those words were said, she found the strength to follow through. She found the strength to make her lungs function. The breath she let out came horrid and uneven, but it came, finally.
"I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."
And finally, her heart steadied, and her breathing evened out. Cinder was able to catalogue where exactly she was. How she'd ended up here. Things that had been lost to her some few seconds ago.
She was in Glynda's bedroom. She was naked, covered in crumpled blankets, lying next to her in a bed that was still damp with the remnants of their earlier activities.
And yet, despite that... she was more comfortable sleeping here than she'd ever been before.
...She could not think about that. It would only hurt her more when the time came to...
To...
"Are you alright?" Glynda said the moment her breathing quickened again, sitting up in bed, the covers slipping off her form, and exposing her chest to Cinder, which she found hard to not observe.
It wasn't her fault; it was a wondrous chest.
"I..." She forced herself to breathe as Glynda had instructed her to, turning so that she could see Glynda out of the corner of her eye. "Yes. I'm fine."
"...You're not fine." Glynda stated after staring at her for a second or two.
And... she had taken her glasses off.
It should not have brought such wonder to her, to see Glynda like this, but...
How many people had seen her so vulnerable? How many could claim to have shared a moment with her like this?
She was so beautiful. Like a marble bust of some ancient goddess.
And Cinder had her all to herself.
How... how had she... how could she...
She forced herself to think on the woman's words, instead of admiring her any further.
She felt she could've attempted to lie, but... why? Why when she had so little time left to just... to be honest?
So she spoke truth.
"...No. I'm... I'm not alright." And it was oddly liberating to admit it. "But in this case there's nothing you can do."
That truth hurt far more to tell than to lie. Because it was something that Cinder had to face as much as Glynda.
Her partner simply nodded her head. "Mm. I understand. Then... I'll focus on what I can do."
She laid back down, and gently forced Cinder to do the same. She turned Cinder's body so that she was turned away from her, and then...
Then she slotted herself against Cinder, and wrapped her arms around her, and just held her so tenderly, with a warmth that felt so perfect.
And Cinder, she...
She wouldn't admit to the fact that her eyes briefly welled up.
"Does that help?"
Cinder couldn't bring herself to speak. Not when it would betray just how not alright she was. Instead, she nodded her head, trusting that Glynda would be able to distinguish the motion in the low light.
And she laid her head down on the pillow beneath her, and tried to ignore the way that Glynda's hair tickled her skin ever so slightly. She tried to ignore the hot breath against her nape, the hands that were touching her stomach, rubbing up and down in slow, soothing motions, touching her in a place that no one ever had, or at least, no one ever had in such a way.
More than that, though, Cinder tried to ignore the words the woman whispered against her neck, later that night, as she pressed her bare chest against Cinder's back, beneath the soft covers of the woman's bed, her platinum blonde hair falling like rivulets to form a makeshift pillow beneath Cinder's head.
"I'll always be right here, no matter what happens." She said, and then she kissed the base of her hairline so sweetly, so softly, that it felt like a current had swept across her skin. "Goodnight, darling."
The dull agony within her… Cinder ignored it. She tried so very hard to ignore it.
She had to.
This was just a beautiful dream. And tomorrow… tomorrow she'd wake up.
And she'd be gone.
End Chapter 42
Cinder is, canonically, a little spoon. I will die on this hill.
I was actually really nervous to release this chapter because I wasn't sure if Cinder's feelings, and the reasons for her rushing things so much, would be apparent? I hope they are, but if they're not then my bad, I'll try to improve on that in the future.
Anyways, more next week! See you then!