sanctum | short stories

to reap what has been sown

"My desire for revenge, the bitterness, repression of everything,"

~ Leila Miccolis, tr. by Nelson Cerqueira, from 'Till Death Do Us Part'

☀ ☼ ☀

Sitting on a raised throne offers a rare, vindictive pleasure beyond compare. The world is at my feet, it's people beneath me, and slouching leisurely into it's solid support, I can just see all their pitiful faces over my knee. There is a blood-bound hatred brewing in their eyes—the kind that will outlast eternities and haunt life itself for as long it prevails, alive forever in their memories before it becomes a monumental part of history the world will always remember. This, I think as I relish the sight, is what it means to be the villain.

Everyone kneeling below is thinking it, and when night falls and they have retired to their monitored sects sat at the foot of my abode, I know they will hiss such words viciously between themselves. "Evil," they will call me; "a wicked witch of a woman," and they will say where they believe I cannot hear that one day, I will reap what I have sown. But this is my reaping. This is my taking what I am owed. Though I am young, I have been wronged many times in my life, and this delightful stirring in my gut brought about by the hateful terror branded across those who once used their shaky fists to bludgeon my wasted body as a child is my reward.

"Street rat," they spat, their knuckles brutal in their descent against my skull and weary limbs. My head felt full then, fuzzy like it was stuffed with cotton, a stark contrast to the hollow concave of my stomach, as my heart does now, only today I am brimming with glaring fulfillment. It aches brilliantly, and I savour every second of the sensation this moment has to give. Evil is a powerful word. As is wicked. But rather than brittle, weak and broken down, I am maleficent in the face of them. Street rat they can call me no longer.

"A-Liu! What have you done?" a voice rasps to my left, their throat sounding thick with blood. I turn towards the speaker with an eyebrow raised in question. I know who they are; the knowledge comes to me as easily as breathing. Composed of blind fondness and a gentle hand skimming over my hair that could never make up for all the time that it wasn't, they feature heavily in my softest memories of the past. Although, it is their noticeable absence in those not so soft that I remember most vividly.

"Mama," I hum, recrossing my legs as I take her in red-rimmed eyes and tear-stained cheeks. "Who else can say their daughter conquered the world so young? You should be so proud!"

At the mockingly light-hearted lilt to my tone, her horror goes unhidden, visible in the defined tension in her jaw, the grave pull of her brow, and the tarnished white of her gritted teeth peering out from between her plush parted lips, and finding the disgust in her expression is effortless. The flecks of crimson marring her pale complexion where the blood she has hacked up sinks into the old laughter lines that formed around her mouth in the years I was not around to see add a touch of grotesqueness to the image of her forced to kneel at my side.

"You're not my daughter," she seethes, spitting a bloodied gob at the foot of my throne. "Your birth into this world is my greatest regret."

The corners of my lips slip into a childishly upset pout as I set my elbow on my throne-arm and rest my chin in the palm of my hand. "Ah, but mama, you once told me your greatest regret was losing me."

She opens her mouth to speak again, but with a single glance over to the one who holds her to the ground, a saber is brought down hard on the back of her neck.

My mother's head rolls, and the crowd of subjects gathered below cry out in alarm and outrage.

I watch it bounce down the vast staircase with a sly half-smile, it's unconscious movements abhorrently messy in comparison to it's clean departure from her traitorous body.

"What a sight, Darling!" I exclaim, sitting up straighter in my throne to witness the panic among civilians as it tumbles into the masses. There are so many screams, frightened and horrified, and even as a pair of soft lips press close to my left ear, I can't bear to look away. As a child I was given nothing, and now I have given myself the world. This is everything I have ever been denied, finally gleaned and all wrapped up by my own hands for me and only me.

With their being one exception.

"It sure is something," the lips at my ear whisper, the voice delightfully rough and indulging. "Nevertheless, I think you can do better. Allow us to put on an even better show for them, my Liege."

And then those very lips as against mine, fiery and fervent in the way they move passionately against my own. I welcome the touch, welcome the calloused fingers that rise to caress my flushed cheeks, welcome the odd daring enraged shout of "cut sleeves" and "fucking queers" from below and with it, the knowledge that the one behind these lips will silence them forever with her saber should I ask.

"Oh, just listen to them, Wen Yuqi!" I laugh lightly as she pulls away just enough to kiss the horizon of my left cheekbone, and finally my left temple. "Such fools."

"Mhm," she murmurs in agreement, her ermine eyes alluringly dark and all knowing. "They know nothing."

"You indulge me so," I say with a grin, lifting my fingers to touch the velvety underside of her chin.

She is not what most would consider a beautiful woman. Her body is too lean and burly with muscle, half of her face blemished with a thick scar that runs all the way down from her hairline through her right eye where both the iris and pupil have gone white with scar tissue, and splits the skin of her cheek until it reaches the rise of her right nostril. But she is strong, often overwhelmingly so, and I live comfortably with the knowledge that all those who oppose me rarely stand a fighting chance against her. She is devout, her loyalty to me as unwavering as the skill in which she wields her beloved saber. And she is accepting, unfailing in the way she disregards my status in the past as a little street-urchin in favour of focusing on all the wrongdoings committed against me. And to me, those things are all that has and will ever matter.

"Wei Liu, you know I cannot help myself when it comes to you. I enjoy giving you all that you deserve." The emotion behind her words is pure genuity, and although I've come to expect it from her, hearing such real, unadulterated care from someone as I stand atop the world as it burns is enough for my eyes to sting with barely withheld gratitude.

"Then," I stand, pausing as I draw in a stuttery breath in an attempt to stop myself from sounding choked up, and reach to clasp her free hand not curled around the handle of her weapon in mine. "Then allow me to give you all you deserve."

Side-stepping out of the way, I push her back to where I previously stood, encouraging her to sit on the seat of my throne.

Our throne.

"Rule malevolently by my side?" I ask, lowering myself rather ungracefully into her lap. "Help me take and take and take as life took from me?"

I'm certain that the grin on my face is absolutely feral—a gesture you'd expect to see lingering like insanity on the face of a madman, but she returns it in full-force and without even an ounce of hesitation, her strapping arms encircling my thin waist and pinching the sensitive skin over my hip bone through my robes.

"Coming from you, Wei Liu, how could I ever refuse?"