7KPP Week 2018: Day 2, Fear
A more traditional form of expression, this time, though I do intend to try a number of different methods this year… <3
An understandable TW due to potentially upsetting themes and potentially disturbing expressions of sexuality.
The Mourning Dove of Corval dreams of an unearthly tune, a melody expressing love and loss. A haunting song, this, duduk imitating the lilting cry of the wind, the strings of the oud tugging at the strings of the heart. She has done it. Finally, she has found it, a poet’s immortality.
Yet the melody ends in dissonance, four notes of utter torment, instruments giving way to voice, a lilting, broken cry, the sound of an animal in pain, or one Djamila would describe as such, had she not borne witness to the suffering of the human being who had uttered it.
Opening her eyes in the darkness, she realizes she must have been weeping in her sleep, again. That moment of self-pity passes swiftly, washed away by a wave of guilt, heart-wrenching and bitter. I can still weep. Discerning the now-familiar confines of her room is another exercise in despicable relief.
I am so sorry, she whispers into the dark. She is a daughter of Corval, a sheltered and privileged one. Many would deem her machinations an act of betrayal. But one cannot truly betray an empire; its people are more important by far. And so very often, the suffering of such people takes precedence over the political interests of an empire.
That, and fear. The fear that, should she allow the Emperor to continue, and his eldest son to ascend the throne, there will be thousands of martyrs, thousands of prisoners, thousands of Blackthorns, shackled and branded, weeping tears of blood, eyes torn from their faces.
The moment is stolen, and sweeter for the theft. Late afternoon, the chill of a marble wall, dust and cobwebs of the Forbidden Wing illuminated by the setting sun… an errant note of almonds in Gisette’s perfume; ‘poison’ is Eloise’s last coherent thought, swiftly errased as two fingers, slender and cold, find the heat under layers of silk. Not a gentle caress, that, nor the excruciating tenderness designed to torment: her grip is strong and vicious, nails raking the delicate flesh. In such agony, there is release; a spasm against the controlling hand, wounds deepening, rubies shattering in the dark. Spent, guilty, and betrayed, Eloise leans against the younger woman’s arm. Not truly knowing why, hoping against hope, she slides a hand down her lover’s body, a glove of black lace upon pale lilac silk. Her wrist is seized in a heartbeat, with the same inexplicable strength; eyes of pale blue look into her own, the princess’ perfect features contorted into an imitation of disapproval.
‘This not how we play this game. Or have you forgotten?’
‘Good’, a barely surpassed smirk, belying Gisette’s composure, a sign of indiscretion, smudged contours of coral lips, ‘Still, perhaps next time I should remind you of your place more sternly.’
With that, she walks away, deeming it a perfect moment, certain that the gaze that follows her speaks of longing, and desperation.
Eloise, the baroness of Namaire, watches her lover’s retreat with an expression that is altogether different. There is calculation there, sober second thoughts once the thirst has been quenched, once the fever has passed. Concern, and… yes, fear. Not the kind that blinds, though, or renders one helpless.
G. is not what she seems, the baroness remembers, recalling yesterday’s letter, sealed with a heart. And thinking of her own conduct mere moments before, pliant flesh yielding to cruel mercies, eyes averted, whispered pleas, comes to another realization.
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