love is the red the rose on your coffin door, what's life like bleeding on the floor?
I have said far too much. My tongue had been too quick, too needy. My lips remain pursed, tightly closed, lest more secrets spill from them. Cautiously I shift my head, craning my neck to look backwards and into the kingdom of shadow and trees, of blood and bone. it was hidden well, beyond the outskirts, deeper, darker. A throne fit for mother, splinters of victim's bones and the debris of forgotten flesh, blood and organs. It was only ever the hearts that saw fit for her, her deadened eyes that watched me with a vain curiosity. She was my mother and yet, I wondered if she thirsted for my flesh like all the others. Hungered for the ripe beating organ in my chest.
The thought ebbs away at my skull, causes a thrum of shivers to berate each and every nodule of my spine, until it flicks from my tail, lashing against my hocks. I turn back to Kushiel, haunting eyes scanning him, his flame, the way that it lights up all the shadows of his face so perfectly. 'I watch for them. Protect them.' I was certainly about to overstep the boundaries I had even set, not only Nykeln or Chantale. Do not talk to those that wander closer, lure them in, or shoo them off. they were either too old, or not pretty enough. Oh, my dearest queen of a mother, she lusted for the pretty ones, and only them. I wonder what she would think of this one? Kushiel, the flame. Kushiel, the burning.
'You mustn't. You cannot meet them.' I shake my head then, the idea petrifies me. I do not want him to see the horrors that I must see most days. And yet, I want to protect both mothers from exposure. He was fire, he could burn them down, right to their wicks. The idea terrifies me, pulls at my senses and drives me forward, closer to the steed. Perhaps I do it for him too, as I had never had a friend, and the idea of the two mares taking him, stripping him down to white bone and consuming his heart, it pulled the fine threads of jealousy within me. So, I was protecting all three of them.
'They are as pretty as roses but as deadly as nightshade.' I pause here, reciting the very words that dance in my foresight every time I look at them, and watch their unnatural display. Oh, Nykeln loved my mother, with such intensity, if she had Kushiel's ability, I would find there would be no meadow left. And Chantale, she loved my mother, for the way she brought her a collection, for the way that she idolised the undead queen. She did no see flaws, she only saw perfection.
'I've never left the Meadow.' I say then, skittering a look back into the throes of darkness. Daringly I step forward, closer to the steed, closer into the sunlight that roves my skin with exploring fingers. It feels strange, the warmth. When you are surrounded by cold, such cold, it is nice to feel the strum of life's chords, the feeling of the flame flicker against my skin as I stand in Kushiel's radiating glow. 'Where do you come from, Kushiel? I ask, trying in some vain attempt to move the conversation and perhaps move him from the close vicinity. Lest they hear his beating heart, taste his flame upon slathering lips. I shake my head then, ebony tendrils falling across my bright, silver coin eyes. 'You will never know just how much you have saved. Kushiel.' my tone is hauntingly soft, as if the ghosts of the fallen souls had captured me and sang their sorrowful tune through my lips. Oh, he would never know. He has saved himself and I have saved him. In some strange retrospection, it feels quite good.
'I would not think that a bad thing. Your company is most pleasant.' the smile that he offers is infectious and I find my own black lips tugging into a smile, a ghost of one, the slivers of a grin in the making. Yet it feels like the smile that adorns my mother's face, when she sees the life slip from the victim's eyes. Oh, no, it is not that smile that touches me, this one, this one I am quite certain is genuine.
v a e r m i n a
chantale x nykeln