02-15-2020, 08:32 PM
GRETA
I once held your soldier heart between my war teeth; shook it like a dog with a bone until it knew the fear of good love.
" Do you remember? "
There is a phenomenon of time that may control and bend everything. Time heals all wounds they whisper - but they do not tell you that time can also crack them open. Stretching time of loneliness and loss - of not knowing why something (someone) had walked away. How must it feel to have everyone leave you? (Greta does not know - for she was raised alone, a glass snowglobe of a girl). How must it feel to have them return? Does time away rent up the feeling of anger and fury and grief? Or does the relief of seeing their face wash over it all?
She is a prisoner to time. Or, more to say, of her Father. Of his whims and follies and delights and deviations. She bears this alone, she bears this quietly, she will bear this until he tires and finds something new to play with - another puppet for his pleasure.
He is no longer what she knew. No, back then he was fearsome, yes, but he was small. He was something formidable, but innocent (in some way, somehow). And now? Now the Ghaul that greets her is a man - not a slight little serpent. He looms over, all porcelain fang and leatherbound wing, up up up she has to look. Her head is bowed, a demure and grieving look, and she almost fears what she will ascend her gaze to. She may be naive, but she is not stupid. She knows what he carries on his body could tear her whole. She knows she has stepped into the dragon's lair, a test of time.
Except - it is not a grimace or snarl, but a smile. A delicate embrace that she closes her eyes and harks back to so many years ago. The dusky smell of his leather wing collapsing around her, a safer globe to sleep in. And just as much, the embrace is gone. A silent acceptance, but perhaps not assurance. Her eyes stutter open as his voice breaks the silence, and her body tenses and jolts back as a physical response of protest.
“No! It is almost a shout, an unintended visceral reaction. She could not have him think as much - he, the only soul she knew in this world. He, the one who cloaked her from the cold and the vast violence of Pangea when she first arrived. “No.” Quieter this time, as to not come off as brazen and brash. “I did not want to go.” And it was true. How furious she was at Him. How angry she was that he saw her have something real, and sweep her away in the blink of an eye. How she crashed her slight body against the glass globe of her world, until blood created a crystal painting across the sky. “ I… I didn’t have a choice.” And she did not. Come he says. And she goes.
“I’m sorry. Truly. I could not say no when He called. I can not fight that thing in his veins.” His magic, His fury, His eons old power. Her head lowers unconsciously, her eyes glazing in sorrow. “But - how are you? How have the years been?” She upwardly inflects, a falsity of hope and cheer in her voice. Ghaul, her cloak of protection. This time, she would not leave.
@[ghaul]