#verse ix.

[cagcdbird]

@magicalled​ — garrett

You are not meant for this world, sweet child of snow. You never have been. You never will be. Best that it never knew you were ever here to begin with.

Sweet sanctimonious the words had been coming from the mouth of her nursemaid as a child. Their intent had never been malicious, meant only to soothe as she wove starlit strands of hair into loose braids. She could not provide answers to an heir that would never see the throne, nor the light of day. She could not assuage the frustrations of a child who simply could not understand the gravity of her own existence, that it spat in the faces of those who had died for the very same reasons she was safely tucked away, unseen, unheard.

A cruel irony, many would say, that an elven princess born with great and terrible ❛magic❜ in her veins would be gifted unto the royal family who had long-since abolished magic.

But here were only so many decades that she could be imprisoned for.

She had no business being so far from home, from her own kingdom. She made it her business to roam nonetheless——sightless, as the flickering of irreparable pupils dictated. All she had to an untitled name was a stolen stable horse and pilfered palace trinkets. The Silent Plains were as quiet and desolate as their namesake. The princess did not care for company save for that of her horse. She’d stepped down from the beast’s saddle to let it drink from a small pond.

Though was blind, she saw the world in other ways. Saw minds. Their intangible thoughts, feelings, memories made tangible by her own hideous brain. Traces of them were what had led the wayfaring elf so far on her own. But she was suddenly very, very aware of a presence. Her stomach sank. Conflict was not on the agenda today.

❝Stay very well back where I can hear you.❞

[cagcdbird]

@thoseofonen / answered: “Please, be listening to me, Miss" whispered the giant, terribly gruff yet immensely gentle, "Be calming down, and taking of deep breaths. You shall be being alright I-- I was frightening them off.” (-Ingvar, if this is ok for me to send!)

So naive was Princess Fleurette as not to consider the beasts that run amok across her father’s land. Hideous things, enormous tigers with gaping jaws the width of doors and a multitude of eyes that no doubt had spotted her a mile away. They hunted in packs; their bites cut through thick steel. Many of the Royal Guard had met their makers with their heads crushed in the creatures’ mouths. They had thrown her from her horse with every intent of making a meal of both.

A trembling hand sought to wipe the blood that spattered her pale face, but only served to smear it. Unfocused eyes flitted back and forth; it was evident that she was in shock, by reason of the gasps for breath that tapered into little whimpers. What had she been thinking? Leaving without so much as a weapon? Stupid, stupid woman. ❝Y-You—y-you didn’t. D-did. I-I don’t——where. Wh-where a-a-am I?❞

[cagcdbird]

@starvedwclf​ / answered: & (tracing scars)

Princess Fleurette had never cared to be touched. So deprived of it as a child thought cursed, a gentle yearning for a mother or father’s love had absconded with her sense of humanity. She had felt nothing for the handmaidens who had bathed her pale skin and braided her snow hair. It betrayed the very nature of the way that she saw the world, through touch, through pale fingertips roving the features of objects and people alike.

So when Fleurette felt calloused fingertips of the starving wolf caress the nape of her neck, she understandably tensed——if only for a moment, and then her posture eased. Why now, then, had she resigned herself to it like a quieted beast in repose? Perhaps it was because she trusted Okami. The litany of scar tissue riddled her back in a hideous mass, the extent of which was concealed by her silk gown. Only the knotted flesh at the nape of her neck and dipping into the fabric teased its existence to the shura.

❝In my kingdom, fire is thought to cleanse,❞ she explained, fiddling with her hands in her lap, ❝and a flame is thought to bring euphoric purification. They tried to cleanse me of my magic as a child. I felt no euphoria. Only my flesh burning. It hurt. From time to time, it still does.❞

[cagcdbird]

@starvedwclf​ / answered: ➜ Play with mine’s hair

Why her journey had brought her to this land, to him, she did not know. Perhaps it was one of the intricate, innumerable threads of fate. Perhaps it was a cruel joke on her gods’ part to lead her astray, deep into the maws of death as she so deserved, to sate the hunger of divine retribution. She was an abomination, and abominations did not deserve to live. The world in its entirety was ground she should not have been permitted to tread, lest she tarnish it beyond rescuing with her presence. She ought to have been executed long, long ago.

So whilst all was quiet save for the crackling embers of an open flame, Fleurette’s mind was ever loud, ever audacious in preaching thoughts that stemmed from a root planted in the belief that her existence was wrong, in justifying her own annihilation. One might—if they dared to look—see the the quiet turmoil in her doll-like features.

Sweet reprieve from those thoughts came in the form of a calloused hand threading through her hair. A river of starlit strands through which to weave fingers, and a gesture that brought the lost princess immense comfort. It warmed the very fibres of her tired soul. So much so that, without uttering a word, she shifted to lay her head in the lap of Okami that he may continue as he pleased.

Mother used to do the same when she loved me, when I was a child, before they knew——thought Fleurette, attempting in vain to staunch the tears that filled clouded and unfocused eyes. They closed, and the beast in human skin was lulled.