Lies Dressed In Lace

Kill Me Like You Mean It

    "That was your daughter wasn't it?" I ask quietly pointing to the forgotten one. My voice quivers and my hands shake.

    "Yes, she was 3 when she was taken from me." He pauses as his own words seem to get stuck in his throat. "I drew her growing up, how she would look so if I ever got her back she would know I never stopped wanting her." He looks me in the eyes meaningfully. "I guess her nose would only be crooked if she grew up here." He smiles sadly looking over my face like he did those drawings.

    "How was she taken?" I ask softly.

    "The false king over threw us just before she turned 3, they forced me to give her up as a way to keep us from revolting, to keep us away." He spits false king like it's disgusting to say, like he hates him,"They said they would keep her safe, that she would have died out here otherwise. I never wanted to loose her." His old eyes beg me to believe him, to trust him. How fondly he talks about her I almost want to.

    "She still doesn't believe you." I whisper feeling the weight of his words sit in my chest. He motions for me to sit in the chair beside my hip. I take it scarcely breathing and moving feeling as if I move too much I might shatter like glass.

    "Let me start at the beginning; the love of my life was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen and she lived in these woods, the very trees still hold her essence. They still speak of her fondly and remember her name as its written in their very rings. When she finally became my wife it was the happiest I had ever been and we ruled with all the love we felt." He takes a deep breath and I feel splinters split from my heart. "She had my son first, he was a beautiful healthy boy and his smile was just like his mothers. We were happy for 6 years then she gave me a daughter and gave our daughter her life." I see the pain of that loss still beating with his heart, "My daughter was more beautiful than I could ever imagine. She smiled at me the first time I held her and I knew her mothers sacrifice was for a reason. I missed their mother more than I could ever say but I love my children with all my heart." He takes a moment to pick up the drawing of the young woman. "Their mother would have hated me for letting her go." He holds out the drawing for me to take. I take the paper carefully trying not to smug the lines.

    "I don't think she would have hated you." I look over the drawing and I realize the girl is smiling in it. "Why is she smiling?" I touch her crooked nose.

    "Because I hope that she is at least happy." Sitting here now I regret what I had said.

    "Tell me your plan to take over the castle." He smiles slowly thinking I'm coming to his side.

    "You are gong to assassinate the king and take the crown back for us as my daughter." I pause for a moment waiting, hoping, he'll tell me he's joking. He doesn't.

    "No ones going to believe that, hell I don't believe that. No one will accept me even if I do kill my father, especially if I kill my father, I'm not the next heir."

    "That doesn't matter, you're my heir, they will have to accept you." I snort indignantly at his blind faith in my acceptance of his bloodline instead of everything I have ever known.

    "Even if they do, and that is an impossible if, that will start a goddamn war because I killed my father." I try to make him understand who I hold myself to be.

    "He's not your father." He says frustratedly pinching the bridge of his nose. Wanting to scream at me

    "I don't even want to start a war with you when you don't even have an army to back it up, especially against the Kwaylarian kingdom next door. We just got out of a 10 year war with them that would have lasted twice as long." I poke holes in his stupid suicidal plan easily and quickly.

    "If you start this war and accept your lineage we will have the army you need." I groan loudly then stand pacing around behind my chair. Slamming my hands down onto the back of it I turn to him.

    "Don't you understand how many people will die?" I throw my arms out, "Not even just that, every kingdom will want this throne. They will fight tooth and nail for this kingdom on every side including from within. They will burn me at the stake the second we loose." He shakes his head.

    "We will win." I shove the chair in my rage and turn away trying to get it under control. I feel the air around my arms prickle before a loud clap of thunder.

    "Your plan is I kill the king. Thats it, no escape plan, no army, no actual fucking plan just go in to your home, kill your father, and then nothing except my certain death." I feel myself start to shake with rage. "You claim to be my father but we do not share the same blind faith in your blood. You want to send me to my death."

    "You don't need to worry, this is only your part of the plan and I can promise you, you will not die. I have already lost you once I will never do that again." He sounds sincere but I can't trust him yet, not when I don't know if he'll lie to me like everyone else.

    "I'm not your daughter." The harshness of my voice seems to finally get through to him and he goes silent. "I'm sorry you lost your daughter, I really am, but I am not her." I hear the patter of rain on the top of the tent and it's the only thing filling this silence.

    "You're right, my daughter believed in magic." His pain resinates in my chest, echoing my own loss of the family I could have had and throwing it in my face. I take a deep breath and for once let a tear leak from my eye, I watch it drip from my nose as I hang my head, it splatters on the blood soaked carpet. "I know that this is a lot to take in, and I know you don't believe me yet, but I need your answer." He pushes me like I'm not rethinking my whole life. I turn back to him.

    "Why don't I remember you if its true? I would have been 3 years old I should have something from my life here."

    "I had to wipe your memory, they forced me to." I laugh bitterly.

    "You're supposed to be this great warrior, and they forced you? No, they took me and you helped them." He leans back and I watch the stone mask fall into place.

    "Is that your answer?" I see why they would think him a warrior.

    "What did you expect, aren't I your daughter?" I spit at him and leave the tent before I say something I will truly regret. I make my way out of the camp to the tree line and find a tree with no bark far enough away that I don't worry about people seeing me. I punch the tree. It hurts but I do it again scrapping my knuckle on what little bark is left. I watch the blood well up from the wounds like it's not my own, as if it was suddenly blue.

    "What did you do to yourself now?" I sigh letting my head drop so Wolkif doesn't see my tear stained face.

    "What I always do, I ruined everything."

    "No you didn't, he ruined it by telling you when you weren't ready to hear it." He sounds almost concerned

    "You didn't hear what I said in there." I smear the blood across my knuckle with the thumb of my other hand.

    "Yes I did, thats why I'm here Syl." He sounds so normal I almost think he's my Wolkif again. "You know he's your father." Never mind.

    "No wonder you're the crazy one, you actually believe that." He smiles at me and I feel dizzy like I'm looking at multiple versions of Wolkif at the same time wavering between him and them. Blurring the lines of his face and body, I blink and rub my eyes thinking its tears blocking my vision and making me see things.

    "You know, Syl." I do. My life has been a lie and I've know it the whole time. But the truth is harder to believe, my own father would give me away yet claim to love me.

    "But why would he give me away so easily?" I ask the only question I truly need answering to.

    "Your mother didn't die in child birth, she died when your father was forced to trade you for her."