show them the joy and the pain and the ending
It slithers around her, that fear. Oily coils that squeeze her lungs like a vice, its sticky touch drawing shudders from her straining muscles. He is there next to her, touching her like a lover might. No one, no one, has that right. Not without her permission. Had she the power, she would rend him limb from limb without hesitation.
Her head drops a bit beneath the exertion, though her knees lock, prevent her shaking muscles from giving way beneath the onslaught. The fear creeps ever deeper, coiling through her mind and teasing out strings of memory, of emotion, she had never even known existed. Darkening the sky, bringing the trees ominously close, their branches stretching, grasping.
Suddenly her brother, sweet, dear Illum, is there before her, stretched out on the ground, broken, bleeding. Dead. She flinches violently back, squeezing her eyes shut on the sight (the only such way she now has of removing such visions). When she opens them again, he is gone, replaced by her father, her mother.
She realizes then they are hallucinations. Vile products of this terrible storm of fear the gutless bastard has decided to rain upon her for no apparent reason. The anger is back then, bolstering her, but she cannot stop the trickle of tears that escapes her blue eyes. She imagines then what she would do him. The awful, gut-wrenching visions she would visit upon him before she picked him apart piece by piece, turning him to dust limb by limb. Doing her utmost to hold the terrible fear he seeks to visit upon her at bay.
As she once more shutters her gaze, keeping that small satisfaction from him, she shakes her head. The implied never in response to his demand remains unsaid. She is panting now, sweat dampening her skin. Her eyes remain closed, head lowered, knees locked, even as fear continues to bombard her from every direction.
”Yes… it.... does.” She gasps at last, in response to his final, crooning statement, an unwitting echo of his own inclinations. It really could be no other way. He would have to claw submission from her the hard way.
heartfire
i filled up my senses with thoughts from the ghosts