A/N: Femslash February Day 3 - Doomed by the narrative
A tough prompt for a one-shot but I am sitting here with tears falling down my face so I consider this a success at any rate. Be warned!
Marion suppressed the shiver burrowing deeper in her bones. Not because of the guards standing at the entrance to the dungeons. They all shared the same unease with the situation hence why none were stationed at the cell itself despite the clear instructions from the Council and they all looked at the tips of their boots as she walked past them, heads bowed not in subservience but in a show of support.
It made the tremors in her limbs worse. If she let herself shudder at the touch of stiff, empty air around her–all the magic spilling from the Vortex of Flames was canceled out here–she'd crumble on the floor. Her guards would have to escort her back to her chambers and she'd lose her only chance to say goodbye.
Her eyes were glued to the tiny dot of fire that the torch at the end of the corridor was. She wanted to run towards it. She could hardly move, thinking of what she'd see in its light.
There was no other option. She forced one foot in front of the other, the sound of her steps echoing around her so loudly she was afraid it would crush the only other person occupying the space.
The corridor seemed darker by the time she reached the end of it. It was highly likely the torches were burning out. It'd taken her an eternity to get here and she couldn't make herself look anywhere else but at the figure ambling about the cell.
The sound of her voice as she hummed a familiar melody–a lullaby from her home planet she'd sang to Marion when nightmares had burst into their bedchamber to disturb their only peace–almost knocked Marion into the metal bars behind her back. She hadn't noticed it from the noise her own steps had made. She would've closed her eyes to listen better if she weren't afraid she'd find herself in the grave she'd dug for Griffin.
For someone living out their last night the witch was entirely unperturbed. She sauntered slowly, leisurely through the cell, a lilt in her movements. She looked like she was trying to put a baby to sleep but her hands were in her own hair, running through it a brush that made Marion's eyes bulge out. Something so simple yet so incredibly surreal in the grotesque world she'd been waking up to for weeks.
Griffin had never asked her for anything, aware of how any lenience Marion showed her would reflect on her image as queen. Somehow it was unfathomable that she'd asked one of the guards. It was offensive even that she would stoop to this but Marion had lost the right to be mad at her. No matter how the rage consumed her from inside and singed her bones.
The sight of Griffin's gloves on her hands would normally quell the feeling at least a little. They never left their place outside the bedroom she and Griffin–had–shared most nights. If not for the bars and the heavy spells imbuing the air to suffocate any magic, she could think they were there now.
The trial had been agonizing in so many different ways, not the least of which watching Griffin stripped naked in the provided prison uniform, without the right to her personal belongings. The only justice had been the discomfort several Council members had exhibited at the sight of her bare hands but that hadn't accomplished anything more. They'd still sentenced her to a gruesome death outlined in a scroll so ancient they couldn't touch the original for fear of it crumbling. A digital copy–a bunch of ones and zeros–had decided the fate of her love.
Griffin's golden gaze found her face and it was a burn like she was drowning in her own blood. The two eyes–her favorite sight in the world–were too reminiscent of the sun that would come in a few hours to set both their lives on fire.
Marion released a shaky breath. She had to reach out and brace herself on the wall, force her chest to expand in order to chase the blackness swallowing her vision.
Griffin waited for her to speak. A punishment or a courtesy? Knowing her, it was very well both.
Marion licked her lips, opened her mouth...
The words weren't coming. What could she say that wouldn't instantly kill her when the compressed magic inside her exploded? She had to find something. Griffin was dying for her. She owed her so much as her presence and all the love she could squeeze in those last few hours that would never be enough.
"Daphne wanted to come see you so I expect-"
"She did."
Griffin's voice was honey, so thick that Marion couldn't move as it dripped down her throat and in her rib cage, so sweet that tears spilled down her cheeks for she was missing it already, drenched in it as she was.
It took her a minute to process the meaning of the words and she managed a nod.
"She brought me this," Griffin held up a translucent yellow butterfly.
The symbol of Daphne's nymphhood. An ethereal representation of every nymph's transformation into a magical being that was more a vessel for the cosmical energies than a mortal human. It was the essence of a nymph's magic – a spark that could not be snuffed out by any force, magical or otherwise. In Griffin's hands it was the perfect tool of escape.
"I am..." Griffin bit her lip before forcing out a sigh, her shoulders sagging, "a really bad influence."
She reached out between the bars, holding the butterfly with two fingers to minimize the chances of accidental touch when Marion took it from her.
Her first impulse was to grab Griffin's wrist and press the butterfly in her palm, beg her to use it. Daphne had already thought through the consequences for the two of them. There would be those that would blame Griffin's escape on their incompetence but most would fall into the pitfall of terror and prejudice – they would think Griffin a monster that had facilitated her own breakout.
Then she caught Griffin's gaze. There was trepidation in it that hadn't been there when she'd been read her sentence. Marion had assumed it was because Griffin had known her fate already. Everyone had from the moment they'd caught her with the black magic recently stolen from Light Rock during the incident that had destroyed half the structure and the surrounding pocket dimension.
Now she could tell there was something else underneath. Something that she likely didn't want to hear but how could she deny Griffin anything?
She took the butterfly, pocketed it before looking back at Griffin and doing her best to swallow her heart back in its place.
Griffin stepped back, leaving room for the panic to choke Marion. If she was making space for her words, they would hit like a comet that would leave a gaping crater in her chest.
Marion surged forward and grabbed the bars separating them. The sturdy metal was the only thing keeping her from dropping on the floor like a shot bird. Her knees buckled and her vision started swimming. She couldn't tell if she was breathing – there was only fire running up her throat.
Griffin's fingers on her arms were the final touch. Her legs gave out and it was only Griffin's support that softened her landing on the harsh, cold stone underneath.
Her chest was heaving, rocking her whole body. That had to be what made the ground look like it was coming up towards her face before sinking down so fast that her stomach jumped in her throat. Or maybe it was her head that was spinning in a way that made the shadows from the flickering torch writhe like monsters around her. No, it had to be the heart pounding in her ears-
Griffin took her face in her hands and pulled her closer, lips covering hers.
Marion whimpered, nails breaking against the metal bars as she clutched them harder. Griffin's hot breath made blood rush to her lips, to her limbs and the rest of her body again. It hurt to come alive like this again, to tremble from the buzzing magic behind her breast bone. She never wanted to feel anything else again. Just the caress of Griffin's tongue against hers, the taste of her breath–always herbs on it–oregano and thyme–that she'd learned to call home.
Her hands found Griffin's neck, cupped it as gently as possible when all she wanted was to stay pressed up against the rhythmic beating of Griffin's heart in her pulse point.
Marion broke away only to fire out, "You should tell the truth!"
She didn't dare open her eyes. She forced herself to anyway because what she saw behind her eyelids was infinitely more terrifying than anything she could find on the face that she loved more than her own life.
She was wrong.
The tender smile on Griffin's lips was the sharpest knife that had ever pierced her flesh.
"I did it all. For love," Griffin confessed what the two of them knew to be the truth, what no one else would understand even if Marion screamed it out from her throne.
They didn't want to understand.
They didn't want to hear that it was all her fault. That she had the most powerful magic in the universe and she had still failed. That Griffin had stolen the vilest black magic to have her back, to save her people when that was Marion's duty. She had done the unthinkable, had asked Griffin for help. She should have kept her mouth shut and taken her weakness to the mass grave Domino would have become.
Griffin would have survived. She was good at that when she wasn't failing on purpose.
"I need something from you," Griffin's words came out jagged and painful to the ear, like they'd suffered the sharpness of her teeth into them.
"Please," Marion sobbed between hiccups and strained breaths.
She would give everything, everything. How could Griffin ask about anything less? What about the rest? What was she supposed to do with it?
Griffin clasped Marion's hand in hers, her fingers weaving playfully through Marion's curls as if she was dauntlessly taming flames. "I need you," she locked eyes with Marion, "to be the one to do it."
Her breath stopped.
Her heart stopped.
She was dead.
She had to be.
She would be if not for the warmth oozing through Griffin's gloves – a pull on her flesh and soul to keep her grounded. Once it used to calm her. Now it was a chain squeezing around her in a bid to crush her.
She lurched back but not far enough to force Griffin to let go of her. "No! No, I will not."
Griffin patted the back of her hand in a gesture so placating, so incredibly negligent that it would never fit the entirety of their feelings even if they remained suspended in this moment forever. Then again, nothing would.
"If I am to die in fire-"
"No," Marion shook her head, voice cresting with desperation, "no. No!"
"-let it be your fire."
"This is... I can't do this." Marion's fingers were dead cold between Griffin's.
Maybe they would freeze here in the darkness of the burned out torches and she wouldn't have to see the day that would take her beloved away. Maybe they would if the look in Griffin's eyes weren't so ardent, so full of life... It was too painful to let her forget that she was alive, that she was doomed to live.
It was too much.
"I love you," she whimpered.
She choked on the salt of the tears flowing in her mouth.
"That's why I'm asking you to do it," Griffin squeezed her hand. "Marion-"
"No," Marion pulled away, covered her ears with her palms like a petulant child.
Her heart hammered inside her chest as if her bones were crumbling walls that had to be demolished for everyone's safety. They'd collapse anyway from the anticipation vibrating through her, the dread of not knowing which "I love you", which time Griffin said her name was their last one... at least until it was too late. It was too much pressure committing them all to memory just so that she wouldn't waste what little time they had left.
"Marion," Griffin's voice came muted as if from behind a wall of ice.
It was unbearable and her wings couldn't spring out to take her–both of them–away. She had always been free with Griffin. This was sacrilege.
Soft fingertips pressed into her cheek. Bare fingertips.
She gasped, hands falling away from her ears and to the uncovered skin littered with burn scars. They were rough under the pads of her fingers but somehow so tender under her lips. She was always awed by Griffin's vulnerability when she allowed her to kiss the wounds in her flesh that were Marion's doing.
She had kissed them so often – first as an apology and later in worship. They had become a comfort instead of an accusation, instead of a crime scene staring her at the face and demanding shame if no justice would be served. She had let Griffin make them a reassurance to both of them.
"Do you remember what I told you?" Griffin ran her thumb over Marion's lip, gloves discarded somewhere behind her back to join the hairbrush she'd tossed aside at the opportunity of physical proximity.
Marion had to close her eyes to savor the touch. She didn't want to move a muscle in case it ended the moment but she had to give that answer lest she lost her mind.
"Of course." She breathed out a sigh of relief when Griffin's finger didn't disappear. It was her greatest fear that she'd blink and Griffin would be gone – just a heap of ash.
She had been close to making it a reality the first time they'd met. Griffin had come to seek help after the devastating attack on Cloud Tower that had killed the headmistress had shaken her to the very core of her beliefs. Marion had fired without hesitation over a spell native to her planet–of all things–that Griffin had stolen from under her nose thus keeping it out of the Coven's hands.
Later when they'd been begrudging allies, Griffin had bolstered her healing abilities only to keep the scars. It had been a reminder, a challenge to Marion's conscience and memory until it hadn't been. Until she'd found herself stroking the charred flesh fondly–with only the occasional pang of guilt in her heart that Griffin's smile quickly erased–and Griffin had started wearing the gloves. The scars were too private now – a testament to the growth of their relationship, to the leap of faith they'd both taken. They were for their eyes only.
"I was wrong," Griffin ran her finger over the burns, her expression wistful.
Marion sniffled. She shook her head, "No."
"I was. You turned out to be my life instead."
An inhuman sound tore through Marion's throat – half growl, half whine. She lunged forward, face pressed against the bars and pulled Griffin into a kiss.
Griffin pushed closer into her, making sure Marion wouldn't mangle herself in an attempt to squeeze through the unyielding metal of the bars.
Marion only broke away for a gulp of air before diving into another kiss. And it wouldn't be the last one. She wasn't ready yet to have lasts with Griffin.
She grabbed at Griffin and kissed her again and again until she couldn't tell one kiss from the next. Her fingers wove into Griffin's hair not in search of the moans falling from the witch's lips on cue, but to keep them entangled. She could incinerate them right here, right now, and they'd never be separated. Or she could refuse to let go of Griffin's lips when both their lungs started burning for air, let them drown in each other's smell and taste, and desperation.
There were options to do this on her terms but Griffin's voice reverberated insistently through her every fiber with something unspoken.
She fought to fill her lungs again when they finally parted. Her eyes searched Griffin's greedily, drinking in the last of the light in her life. There was no telling how close dawn was outside but it was fast approaching and Marion was powerless against it, too.
Griffin grasped her hands and pulled them through the bars to hold to her chest. "I will never feel my magic again. Let me feel yours."
Marion looked away but her gaze was magnetized – it returned on Griffin as soon as she was out of her sight.
"Let me feel you till the end. That's all I can ask." Griffin pressed kisses to her fingers, every next one more painful to resist.
Marion nodded, forced herself to give an answer, "I will."
Griffin leaned in and Marion met her halfway, pressed their foreheads together. It was the first time her mind stopped screaming ever since Griffin had been arrested. It was Griffin's serenity soaking into her.
"How are you not mad?" Her heart was still racing – a throbbing ache in the middle of her being. If she let it, it would turn into a black hole and swallow the sun so that only those graced by Griffin's gaze would survive.
"Because I won."
Marion held her breath. From so close she couldn't see Griffin's face in order to read anything from it, and she wasn't pulling away.
"I always reviled the possibility of being executed for something I haven't done, as a victim of people afraid of my power. But this now," her voice was wet with tears and she squeezed Marion's hands, "this is a blessing. I am dying for love."
Marion shook with sobs but Griffin held her in place, didn't let an inch of space separate them. "I have more to give you! So much more!"
"I know," Griffin raised their hands up to Marion's face and wiped away a tear with her thumb. "You are the one who has to live with it."
Her voice had a firmness about it that Marion couldn't absorb. She had to retreat before she'd shattered against it.
The butterfly in her pocket heated up as if to remind her of its presence, to etch itself into her being.
Daphne.
In Griffin's proximity it was impossible to hide behind a facade; she didn't want to. And now she'd forgotten how. If she were dead on the inside, Daphne would see and it would kill her too.
"I wish..."
She couldn't say it. If they went back to their first meeting now, with all of their knowledge of the future, Griffin would tell her again that Marion would be her death. She'd probably smirk instead of glaring this time. And Marion would fall in love even more hopelessly than she already had, with how unafraid Griffin was of the spark between them despite the awareness that it would burn her to ash.
"What?" Griffin asked, a knowing look in her eyes.
Marion had no idea how she was keeping track but they were running out of time.
She shook her head. "Nothing. You are more than enough."