Where one might have glanced away, she does not. Marie holds herself rigid & rather stubbornly as her beloved brother might call it – why, pray tell, does he not fear the sigma that clings so desperately to her name? A title bestowed upon the SANSON family, and that family only – to see them both feared and revered is the ugliest curse of all. Pale nostrils flare, if only for a brief moment. She refuses to bow her head in greeting, or beg forgiveness from a god who has graced her with a hand that deals death. Ah, but their razors edge bleeds onto her tongue, honing muscle into steel that oft slices through noble pompousness with the ease of her blade through skin, flesh and VERTEBRAE.
They all wear masks here. Thirsting men and women who drink greedily from the WELL of praises, unaware of the poison that festers in the depths of the chalice. Ah, he moves with the grace of a dancer, though his steps are calculated, the occasional avoidance of a stuffed up windbag enough to birth an ungraceful snort of unhidden amusement that earns her a glare from those close enough to hear it. Shame on them, shame on her, shame on them all, really. she supposes that she’s not completely surprised when he saunters closer and that’s when she truly notices him – hair like PHOENIX FIRE and cerulean reflecting the same boredom that lingers in her own, steel grey. Hairs prickle at the pale nape of her neck, goosebumps raising on flesh thankfully hidden from sight by fine fabric – caution, cradle her words.
One simply mustn’t trust a man who is mad enough to approach death’s daughter. Would he have, if he had known how many have met their end at the edge of her sword? Or how she carries the pride of her father and family upon her slender shoulders, though they greet her with disgust when she refuses to preen and fawn over men far above her station and who would dare not cast a glance in her direction? Marie doubts it. Alas, all in the nature of politics. Fingers trace idle patterns over the silk woven haft of her sword - where he would partake in wine, she would indulge in the comforting feel of softness that steadies an unnerved heart. ‘ perhaps marie ought to be, though she admits that when the arguing starts it tends to liven up beyond measure. what of yourself? ’
FEAR does not cradle a sinner’s heart, nor does it bubble silently ‘neath all the weight of his lumbering delights; a breath of pride that goes untold, unnoticed ... unblemished. Aye, for what reason must he FEAR? When such a precious and precarious thing sits so diligently at the base of his blackened gut, like a HELLFIRE that fuels whatever words that funnel up to a tempting, venomous throat. He of all whose graceful steps and strikings sing melodies of streams of which fear itself abounds, his very person a CAGE OF RUIN, a black-briar container of rot and villainy, of which all his revelries and evils congregate in one deviously delicious hold. No. His mysteries tell others much of himself, and whene’er he must look upon the face of another, whose thrillers glimmer in their own mysterial eyes against his limpid bulwark of shattered blues and greens, his infernal e’er terrible RED whose vermilion flames lay hidden and untempted ‘neath dragonslaying palms, he finds familiarity-- never fear.
She is ever so loud in person. Ever so bright and thrilling that a man of his calibre, whom oft escaped into worlds of damnable rhymes and the paradises of poesy, could not easily dismiss her from his realm of innumerable dreams. If such a thing could be assumed, she was the most interesting beast in the room. The chandeliers, while one could imagine just how many diamonds had been hammered into their skeletons, of just how many hands broke to dig them all out of their platinum dens, their numbers far exceeding the glitter of swelling ever-seas, could not even stir a lid no matter how brightly they burned. He had already chosen his prey, the object of which he would create all his subsequent thoughts-- his LUST FOR KNOWLEDGE and the madness that grips too strong a pleasure for a man whose very existence was to love. (to hate.)
HATRED AND LOVE GO HAND IN HAND.
CRYING IN HIS EARS & CALLING TO HIS HEART.
“Ah, so you are waiting for the ropes to snap.” Humour delights him, brings life to handsome eyes that were once dull with boredom, like a herald of summer that bids away the mournful song of his indifference. They take sail across a chromatic ocean of bigotry, looking past her more likeable cast to those whom laugh, engorge, kiss and make merry in vestments too gaudy for the poverty of their souls, and the imminent smile that curls crescent ‘cross sun-kissed features, that gladdens flesh and feeling too exceptional for them, is one of buried savagery.
“They are tight, too tight, and ready to let go.” It is easy for him to spot what is falsified-- his life depended on it. The shakiness of a forceful smile weaker than an aspen branch, the tear that builds in bruised corners of ruddy brown and grey, the constant switch of arms, the unremitting noises of ‘ums’ and ‘a-has’, the sweat of brow and the fiddling, lying and baseless humour that accompanies the hollowed form of a deceiver in agony. Aye, the FAKE and the FAIR unite on a battleground of polished marble built on histories of BLOOD. Just one comment out of line, a referral to darker days, or the truth of mortality, would be enough to see festivities become fray.
“How long do you think it will take? A guessing game, if you would like to join me.”
