Loveless: The Consequences of Stealing a Heart
(Inspired by the song 'Loveless' by Strampianist. Sketches posted here!)
A poor boy uses black magic to get the Baker Girl's heart, with terrible consequences.
She was the beloved daughter of the baker and he was the wretched bastard of the lord. Born to one of the wenches in town, his existence was a blight to anyone that saw his sickly body.
The cursed child, doomed to be pitied, doomed to never be loved.
But with her, it was different.
The baker's girl. As warm and soft as the rolls she'd make him. She listened to anyone's problems and always greeted customers with a smile. A friend to all, sweetness incarnate; everyone wanting a piece of her attention meant the scraps she gave him weren't enough to sate him. He needed their time to be special, for her emotions to be more than pity.
He wanted to be selfish. He felt he deserved it.
With the help of dark magic, he could get exactly what he needed.
The Lord died within a month. His son followed suit. All hail the Bastard Heir's quick ascendance.
A festival commenced as he was paraded around town. His figure was fuller. His face was more pleasant. Was he always this charming? The town is mesmerized by the transformation, their hazy memories left at the wake.
Yes, he had always been this amazing. Surely, they had all simply been blind before now! They cheered and danced and made merry for the new Lord, someone that cane from the same streets as them, who opened up the sweet caskets of wine from the mansion and celebrated with them. He would rule them fairly. He would be the best.
No one noticed a tingle down their throats as they drank. They were just too happy.
When she opened her eyes, nothing was the same. Everything she saw was hazy. Everything she felt was muted. It hurts to try to remember what had happened, but sometimes snippets of memories would slip through the cracks.
A festival.... laughter turning into murmurs... silhouettes against a flame...
That was as far as she could probe. The rest was kept under lock and key.
Life became too busy to probe further. Her hand was asked for that morning by none other than the new lord. Of course, her family wept and accepted. When asked for her opinion so nervously by the man, she couldn't say. Her head nodded without her telling it to.
His smile was like she had given him the sun.
They had their wedding. They had their first night. She was his in a blur. He couldn't be happier, and she could hardly care. The back of her mind continued to prickle on how her life had changed so fast.
Ever since the festival...
She felt like she should investigate. It felt like this was something that mattered.
But she couldn't be bothered to do anything that wasn't asked of her.
She was spoiled and pampered, monitored day and night. He loved her, it was obvious from his borderline obsession with keeping her at his side. But as time wore on, even he was beginning to feel it. It took him long enough to open his eyes to it. His wife wasn't smiling. His wife never asked questions. It was hard to remember her from before her marriage. She'd been eager to talk, cheerful, and bright. Now.... now she just. Couldn't be. And he couldn't wrap his head around why.
He was doing everything right...
Everything a good husband should!
He was distraught... and that emotion turned into an obsession to figure this out.
Why didn't this work? He had asked for everything. He should've been given everything. The town, the riches, the estate, and her heart. But it was all going wrong.
Without the education of the previous owners, he was making bad decisions on how to run his land. Without help to his citizens, a financial crisis was beginning to take hold. With how much time and money he spent on his wife instead, the people were beginning to have their hearts sway. He wasn't the savior they'd hoped for. He was worse.
And his most pathetic strife-
Was that he couldn't get his wife to even smile at him.
With a riot at his door, he's holed himself in his room. Clutching at his beloved's feet and begging her. He didn't ask for her to love him, not anymore. He knew he was a failure, through and through. All he asked, all he could ask, was for forgiveness. He knew that he would die. He was ready.
Something in seeing this broken man gave her her first memory back from before things got fuzzy. Before.... she realized.... the ritual he had conducted. This was the same boy that had suffered in the streets. The same one she worried over, the same one she'd look after, feed, and care for. Her heart started besting again, and it hurt.
She held his head and surprised him when he looked up and saw her tears. This stupid man with the fake face. She pitied him so much. He shook and called her name. His tone was so hopeful that she would be back. But before she could respond, and before the townspeople could get through their door, time stopped.
A devil appeared, ready for his part of the deal.
'I've come for the souls.'
'You- You can have them! You can even have mine! Just please- please let her live!'
The devil laughed and shook his head. She pressed a claw against the boy's head.
'You should have known better... how this would all play out.'
She snapped her fingers, and the ruckus died. Lights outside flickered out. A deathly silence echoed; the girl had never heard her town like this in all her life. She stared, wide-eyed at the last words of the devil.
'Now you have lost everything. And what better way of continuing my fun than to have you keep living...'
She grinned toothily at the baker girl,delicately dressed and small.
With another snap of her fingers, the girl felt the floor swallow her. Inky blackness washed through the edges of her vision, and the light from above showed a distraught, screaming, ugly boy failing to reach out for her hand.
