Leaves her a white tulip
Give my muse a flower
White petals stand out against a stark background of darkearths and murky blacks, the sheer purity of the flower threatening to burn thehand that holds it. Gentle petals cupping one another to form a graceful bowllook foreign in her hand and the urge to crush it pulls at her fingertips, butsomething else keeps her hand still; even now, months later, char and ash stillfloats along on the wind, and stone settles in her chest. Has she not caused enoughdecay in such a short time?
The flower, so clean and gentle rests ever so lightly in herpalm as the dark of her glove reflects along the stark petals and it feels wrong for her to hold it. For her to receivesuch a beautifully simple thing from thisman of all people, seems to spit in the face of all judgement and naturallaws. He has every right to hate her, and yet comes forth with a flower as if tosay
Iforgive you
Andsoon the magnanimity melts away and she can see it for what it truly is.
He mocks her.
Surely, he does.
He must know her grooming from a young age to bring abouthis downfall. Know she follows blindly a being powerful enough to pull the lifefrom a person with a single touch. His students fell indiscriminately at herhand by her own will, and she singlehandedly besmirched the names of both his academyand the headmaster himself.
No, there could be no forgiveness in this gesture; onlybitter resentment and a smugness that comes from seeing the woman who so easilybested you months ago reduced to a charred and limping disappointment unworthyof even her mistress’s table scraps.
Fingers curl about the stem in a fist as she bares herteeth, words bubbling from her chest for the first time in months, bringingwith it the taste of blood and the sensation of tearing scars, the single wordleaving in an unsteady hiss akin to rocks sliding and tumbling over oneanother.
“Why?”
