“Do you remember what I taught you?” Killiyn’s voice demands to be heard as the dulcet words slither past lips held flush against the cartilage of Carmilla’s ear. She stands behind the younger woman, hands upon her shoulders, while she watches the enforcer adjust the collar of her blouse in the mirror.
The downward tip of an angular chin is the only indication that the human has heard her. Ever-thoughtful, the reflection of grey hues meets that of violet, contrasting colors clashing in a war with no perceivable end.
“Tell me, then,” purrs the captain, her nails digging into the fabric of the other woman’s jacket.
Carmilla clears her throat before reciting, “The game’s outcome is not determined by the number of weapons or men you have at your disposal, but by the quality of the player on the board. And though the field may be uneven, though the opposition might think themselves capable of winning, it never holds up in the long-run.”
“Because I will always be the smarter player,” she decides.
An inkling of morning’s light leaks through a hole in the curtain, painting the room in an ethereal, dewy glow. It’s enough to devour the shadows left behind by the evening’s affairs, revealing the spoils of war artfully hidden in the previous darkness: clothes discarded on the chair, empty bottles on the floor, remnants of cigarettes spent in the ashtray, and, perhaps the most telling, not one, but two indentations on the bed. The light rats her out, wreathing her den of debauchery in frosted gold.
Carmilla pays neither it nor the subtle creak of the door as it closes behind a fleeting figure any measure of attention. Far too busy to care, she sets her palms on the sink’s edge and leans forward, stark naked and studying her face in the mirror.
Several bruises span the expanse of tired features. Where once there were only freckles against porcelain flesh, now there are streaks of purple and cuts, and the lingering flecks of blood she missed from the initial scrubbing of her hide. Bags flanked by discoloration hang from beneath her eyes, meshing with a nose that curves in all the ways it shouldn’t. Her left brow, too, still dribbles enough crimson to obscure her vision, and she brings the back of her hand up to wipe it away with a regretful sigh.
Though her head screams and all the aches and pains that had subsided as a result of her feeding one too many bad habits come back with more vengeance than a woman scorned, the sight of her reflection fosters a small, clandestine smile. It reminds Carmilla of a different time, a time before everything went to shit and action beget consequence. But the pounding of her heart in her ears prevents the woman from lapsing into emotional reverie.
The life of her smile is a short one, the expression fading away as quickly as it came to be. She souses the dirtied rag hanging over the sink in the water still kept within the basin, pressing the wet cloth against the gash through her lip. While it doesn’t assuage the soreness, doesn’t cause the pain to abate, it does assist in cleansing her visage of the red that looks much better on her hands, and she uses the rag to disinfect the cut above her brow, too.
“I will always be the smarter player,” Carmilla promises her reflection. She continues to deterge herself entirely of the evening’s sins unbidden, and in this moment, she can almost feel the hands of a long-gone captain squeezing her shoulders in unspoken praise.
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