Puppet Strings

She was not amused. No, far from that. In fact, it was not even an inkling of the hurricane of emotions concealed in her fragile body.

She felt frightened, angry, frustrated, disgusted, appalled...

Exasperated.

"Is that supposed to impress me?" She asked, her face a defeated mask of indifference. She surprised herself with her pensive response, far from how she thought of lashing out or sobbing uncontrollably on how macabre the situation was.

Across her with his impeccable cane in hand, the Crooked Man glowered, his expression more menacing than the one he wore while he executed his questionable methods of protecting her.

"I was doing you a favor. This man was undressing you with his eyes while we were out in the market," he bitterly spat, nudging the arm of the poor man's corpse whose inability of subtlety wrought his own demise.

"Well, aren't you a demented sweetheart," she retorted flippantly, voice set in a slow droll to mock the dangerous creature before her.

Blaise's crimson eye twitched in annoyance. "I was doing this to protect you!" He yelled, thumping his cane on the ground, aggravated. The action cause her heart to speed up, knowing well what divine powers his cane was capable of. The relief that flooded her was instant when nothing out of the ordinary happened. Despite the initial shock, clearly her momentary fear did not do anything to deter her spunk.

"Mhm. Of course you are," she countered, feigning disinterest to mask her amusement on the rise she was getting from the madman.

Before he could respond, she outstripped him with her next words to continue stoking his irritation, no matter how dangerous the game she was playing at.

"You know," she began, effectively shutting up her malevolent lover, "you could have just scared him away. He would have run like a pansy he is, ehm, was, no doubt. Considering your reputation among the civilians, he would have already understood the implication of your warnings, or even just your appearance at his doorstep in the middle of the witching hour, not after pissing in his pants out of fear, of course. But this," she motioned a hand to the horrific corpse lying in the ground, nose scrunching up in distaste at its sight and stench, "this is something I would call over-reacting."

Blaise's glare lowered. "No, this is not 'over-reacting'. This," he imitated her gesture of motioning to the dead body, "was a lecher who would have taken the chances of stealing your dignity away the next time you enter that filthy market."

Her mouth dropped at the words he uttered. "Are you insinuating what I think you're insinuating?!" She crossed her arms over her shoulders and sent him the nastiest glare she could muster. She was appalled by the thought of his words, and was greatly offended by how casually he suggested the likelihood of it happening. To hell with his madness! She was not using that as an excuse to let his mouth yap away.

Now it was Blaise's turn to keep her from speaking further.

"Yes, I am, and I prevented it from happening by getting rid of him even before he gets to lay a filthy finger on your hair."

She scoffed. This was ridiculous! Pure madness! Madder than what insane hellhole her life descended to! She could not believe he could say that in her face like it was just a casual day-to-day piece of conversation human beings would engage themselves in.

Then again, was he even human?

Ugh! That man was taking a toll on her nerves! How dare he!

"You are insufferable, Blaise!" she cried, throwing her hands up in the air, glaring with wide eyes at the disrespectful man who stood across from her. "How dare you speak to me that way? Do you truly believe that I would let him get me? Of course not, you stupid, contemptible, ridiculous man!"

Blaise stood still, merely raising an eyebrow at her outburst. Cheryl would never have yelled at him like this; she would have looked at him with those innocent, wonderful eyes and thank him for saving her from a wretched fate. It never ceased to disappoint him that this stubborn, foul-mouthed, ungrateful woman would be her next life. She did not deserve to be Cheryl, and if Blaise had a say on the matter, he would have preferred to have her turn into a marionette, even if it would mean another century of looking for his long lost love.

Yet Blaise wasn't an ungrateful, whiny, narrow-minded cretin like pseudo-Cheryl (It made him internally cringe paralleling his true love with this disagreeable creature). Fate must have a reason for bringing Cheryl back into this woman, and in the long run, once the truth would have been unveiled, he would rather discover a justifiable reason for that.

"I do hope you are finished with your tirade. I highly doubt I could last another minute in your pleasant company with this body around," Blaise remarked. He cast a haughty glance at the fuming woman, quirking an eyebrow at her. 

The woman strained to match his sharp stare. All the while, she did her best to keep her eyes to the slender form of nightmare-incarnate and not to the macabre picture of death lying by her feet. She did her best to ignore the rank stench of fresh blood and exposed entrails thickening the forest fog and making the air around her impossible to breathe in. She did her best to keep her throat steady as the victim's hopeless and terrified face flashed in her mind, her horrified face being the last thing he ever saw as he slowly faded away under the Crooked Man's magic, literally cutting him open from inside out.

She did her best to suppress the twisted love that was growing in her chest for the Crooked Man who stalked, kidnapped and killed a lecher for laying his perverted eyes on her.

It ended in vain, and upon that realization, her flames wilted. They dimmed in color, though they strived to stay ablaze. 

She did not reply, and did not move a single muscle as she and the Crooked Man stared at each other, both waiting for the other to make a move. The silence was heavy, the chord of tension thick yet fragile, winding around them in complicated swirls and knots.

It was the Crooked Man who broke the strings as he stretched out his arm not holding the cane, stepped over the forgotten corpse, and slowly, warily, placed a rough hand on the woman's shoulder. She neither flinched nor cursed at him, and that brought him a sense of relief and a traitorous tinge of hope, bitter and lasting in his stomach.

"Let's go home," he quietly said, lightly pushing her to walk forward, and she complied, stoic and docile, restrained by the red strings wound around the Crooked Man's fingers; like a puppeteer leading a puppet into her dollhouse. 

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AN: Instead of Renee, the reincarnation of Cheryl is another woman who is the complete disparity of Cheryl. As you can see, Blaise is having a hard time with her. Although she retains her memories, her present self is not fully eradicated. With the memories of Cheryl and hers residing in one body, you could say that Blaise will have a handful for the rest of his life. The woman in the story is left to the imagination of the reader. This could work as a reader-insert. 

By the way, I will post this to my Fanfiction.net account. My name there is BlissfulBlink. Yes, I'm that weird girl who writes smut for Cursery all the time.