Ruin Maketh Me

59 - Unknown humour

     AN: Found a theme song for Cynder, whooo!

Now, I can breathe. Here within this encirclement, I've gotten back a fraction of my haven, even just momentarily. I drink in the fresh scent of his crisp clothes, release myself into the lull of solid warmth for a fleeting second and pull away slickly against the shouts of my frantic heart. Enough. This is enough.
     "Cynder what happened?" Ralphus's eyes dance over my dishevelled state, the torn and bloodied clothes, the strands of wild hair flying this way and that, and he opens his mouth, but before any words are able to drift out, a sharp intake of gasp disturbs the air between us.
      He raises his hand, cups his mouth as if to stifle the dismal entry of his cry into the world, and something about the absurdity of his movements makes it all very funny. Very funny indeed. What with the bonding and everything, everything, I can't help but laugh and laugh and laugh until the breath inside of me comes out into wretched gasps, laugh until I bend down hugging my stomach in pain, laugh until there are rivulets of wetness dripping down my face, laugh until there's nothing more within me that can come out, no more tears, no more vomit, no more pain, no more. I clutch onto his shirt, hands shaking, the hilarity wheezing up and up like an untethered balloon.
      "Stop Cynder!" Ralphus grasps my shuddering shoulders firmly, mouth ugly with fear and anger and unnameable sorrow, "Stop, please. I'm here. I'm here." A single, riveting tear slips out of his miserable eyes, and he takes me into his arms again with an accepting fear.
     A fear for me or a fear of me, I can't differentiate. I don't care. Perhaps it's both.
     The things that made it funny disappear with a breaking snap, and I find that I cannot laugh anymore, there's nothing in me to sustain it, it's not very funny at all, and I should stop. I need to stop, but what should I do? I want to keep going. As long as I keep going, this whole thing can continue being a joke. I can still ignore it and treat it as something minute and non-existent in the grand scheme of my life.
      My breaths fly away from me in escape, and black flies buzz in mutiny within my vision. I'm just lying to myself, and I've never been a very good liar despite what I'd like to think. we all have to stop one day don't we? My chest halts in it forceful lifts, my shoulders stop in their mournful shakes, the laugh dies from my lips, and I breathe instead. That's it. That's the way it should be.
     Ralphus's hands stroke my back slowly, and he coos softly in my ear, "It's alright, I'm here. I'm here."
     I close my eyes, take another eternity to piece together the fractures within my mind and slip out from within his arms.
     He looks at me with a new pain and a new understanding, and the dent has appeared back within the centre of his forehead, and he opens his mouth, fighting through all the things he wants to say, should say, can't say, and the only thing that comes out is, "Did he hurt you?" And with rising anger and hatred, "I can't kill him!"
     "Yes." The words slip out simply, "You can't kill him."
     Ralphus takes hold of my wrists like they're manufactured from glass, and his eyes drift to my neck with a hesitation I've never seen in the silent confidence of his face.
     "He formed a mating bond with you?" A deep voice the colour of mulled wine rings out from behind Ralphus, half in interrogation, half in a sharply repressed confusion.
     My eyes stare at the onyx waterfall of hair and the red eyes, two blood moons in the sky, "Is that what you call it? A mating bond?"
     Julius takes a step forward out of Ralphus's shadow and faces me with a strained look forged from doubt and disbelief, as foreign on his face as the fear etched within Ralphus's. The flickering strength and alien uncertainty of his eyes fly between Ralphus, me and the Church, then back at me, only me, "He had no right to it. None at all."
     "Did you know?" Ralphus fires towards Julius with an unconcealed contempt.
     "No." Julius stares at my neck at the horrible but definite truth behind it, "I didn't know he was Beastian."
I want him.
     The Bond shifts troublesomely under the piles of stone and metal, threatening to surge up and drown me once and for all in that bath of glorious unity and need. Shivers both cold and burning hot in nature thread through my heart and chest and tear me apart like ants preying on the weak, but I cannot fall, I cannot give in just yet. I bar shut the doors to my mind, lean all my weight against the yawning stone and wood and wish it away, force it away, the need to be whole again. I lift my feet, heavy and unwilling to move from the Church, from my Lilith, and step forwards.
      "We need to leave this place."
      They do not fight it, Ralphus and Julius, both, they follow me away from the great harsh structure, the marble floors, the beautiful organ, the high arching ceilings, the little apartment, my Lilith, my Lilith. We part, each step seemingly a league of worthless land between us. The bond grows more and more unsettled, my heart colder and colder like a stone away from the warmth of the sun, and my mind dries in the most physical sense, as if it's lost all moisture. All thoughts blend into one single mantra: I want him, I need him, my mate, my mate.
      I plunge on. I blind myself to the world. Or is it my body shutting down in accordance to my disobedience against the reality that is my mind? No matter, all colour mixes into one, all sound rings as one, all sensation bleeds into one. A low, hoarse scream surges up into the thin air behind me, far away, a plea towards the heavens, towards God, towards me, I don't know. My heart cries and my chest bleeds imaginary redness into my tainted mortal flesh inside. They're screaming too with that bitter cry full of begging regret. The things that could've happened, the things I could've allowed and accepted, the it-could've-beens and the endless possibilities stretching out into infinity.
     A shadow of that reachable happiness I've dreamt so many times crying to myself. 
     None of that matters. I denied it. One more step.
     Two hands grab onto my arms, one from each side, each as hot as the other. My feet cannot move, they chain me to the ground, these two nuisances. Frantic, shaking pupils tremble into view, "I know you want to be away from him, but your body won't hold up Cynder!"
     Flaming fingers brush back my tangled hair from the other side, "You two can't be too far away from each other right now."
     A sigh trembles from my ravaged heart, and I go down with the two hands. The scent of apples and mint envelop me, and I'm pulled into Ralphus's lap like a frail thing with clipped wings. The deep, war-drum beating of his heart prays to me to rest, to stop running for just now. But what else can I do? I don't know how to think, how to stay silent and still when all that's ringing in my head is I want to be with him, I need to be with him.
     Julius runs his fingers through my hair, one stroke turning into two and three and four, "It'll pass."
     I close my eyes, and the jumbled mess of twisted fate blinkers out of sight. It will pass, it always does. I've been through withdrawal enough times to know.
     "Tell me," The words tremble from my mouth like a new-born foal, "about it."
     Ralphus kisses the back of my head, and drops of liquid lava splash onto my exposed back, "Well," His creamy voice takes in a shaky breath, "Beastians have fated partners dictated by their God, mates they call it." His hands caress my naked shoulders mellowly.
Lilith.
      "A connection is constructed between those involved by a bite on the nape." Julius's cavernous voice soothes my other ear, "The one who bites is generally seen as the more dominant within the relationship. Although it does happen time to time, it's quite rare for a beastian to have a mate from another species. I suppose that's why Lilith was willing to take you on at the beginning." A small, hollow whistle of breath travels the rushed space between us, "I didn't sense it at all. He kept the secret very well. He didn't do anything to you during that time?"
Lilith.
    "Julius." Ralphus spits out like a red traffic light.
     "No." My voice leaves me faintly.
     "His self control is quite abundant." Julius lifts his head and fixes his impenetrable eyes on the spire kissing the eternal blue of the sky, "You can describe it as an instinct, to be together with a Mate. You're not Beastian so you couldn't have sensed it, but he would've this whole time." A subtle clench fastens his jaw, "He had no right to it, not when you're my property,"
Lilith.
     Ralphus's arms tighten around my waist.
     "But what's done is done." Julius continues icily, "The Bond's been formed, you should be able to communicate freely with him as if you're the same soul in two bodies. It's rare to see someone unwilling, but this is something that can't be broken, even by the gods." His eyes sink back to me with a cooling hardness, "When he goes into a rut, he's going to come to you, you understand?"
Lilith.
      Ralphus holds me closer and closer as if trying to combine himself with me into a single entity, two souls one body, "I won't leave you, Cynder." He murmurs, full and open, "I'll never leave."
      "Rut..." My mind struggles through the insistent cries of this bond, "The Beastians have heat cycles don't they?"
     "That's part of the problem," Julius states in apathetic examination, "you don't have a heat cycle, but he does, and children... Well, I'm not quite sure how that would work."
      A shiver grabs me by the spine and tears through each sinew of muscle, determined to break my apart. The idea of children, something born out of the image of Lilith and me sends nausea creeping up my throat again, but, but at the same time, the central wires of my being clamour in glorious delight. Children, how brilliant! I want to be impregnated by him! Lilith—
Lilith.
      No. I squeeze down on Ralphus's firm arms. No. But my ass squeezes and a heat shoots up like a pyre in the depths of my groin. No. What the fuck is happening to me? What. Is. This?
      My seat shifts and Ralphus clasps my hand strongly, "Rest assured Cynder, I won't let him do anything to you."
     Julius stands slowly with a calculated power, "Is he," A fire blazes into existence within the glowing red of his eyes, "a white panther?"
     The sleek pureness of feline fur, amber gold light eyes absent of all human saneness rips through my body. Sickness and adoration spiral out of control in the midst of my mind's desperate yearning and my body's dismal fear. He's something not cat, but panther, yes, that's it isn't it? He must be a panther.
     "Yes."
     A love-shattering smile slashes across Julius's red mouth, and he looks back down at me, spine-chilling laughter vanishing slightly at the edges, "I won't kill him, but he'll suffer for this."
Lilith.
     An echo of a sigh slips from my throat like some sort of fastidious attempt to show my acceptance of both the love and the hate, "He's already suffering from it."
     My vision clears spot by spot. Don't you think it Lilith? Like Jacques, don't you think you're fate has corkscrewed into something abominably painful from meeting me? Because I can't simply accept it without fighting and bleeding for it, because I can't just trust as easily as smiling and saying yes, because I can't help but be scared every time I hear the word 'love'. Each and everyone of you think it's destiny, a path pre-decided by God, but if that's so. If that's so, wasn't all my struggles and all the pain last life completely worthless?
Julius's eyes pause sharply in their devouring, and another shard of refused confusion treads softly into his gaze, "Why?"
I shrug, struggle to my feet with Ralphus's hand at my elbow, "Let's leave, I'm fine. You two still have lessons don't you?"
A sharp, mocking laugh slips from within Ralphus, "Those hardly matter at all." But he takes up my hand, and I let him interlock his finger with mine, and we set out forwards again, me jammed in the middle like we're making up a strange demon sandwich.
The uncontrollable shouts clam up the entirety of my mind, and each movement forward is pain, but I move on, I move on through all the Don't leave Lilith behinds, the I can't live without hims and every single one of the I love hims. Because I don't love him.
I don't love him.
I don't need him.
He should find someone better than me, a nice girl who'd let him dote on her, who'd give him beautiful children, who'd not be selfish and stubborn and a hypocrite. Like me.

Ralphus bends down and places his hands tenderly on either side of my upper arms, "Are you sure you don't need to go to the infirmary? I can stay with you if you want, the lessons here are only for appearance's sake."
I look him squarely in the eye, those beautiful, mind-numbing eyes, "No, I'm fine. I need some time by myself."
A glimmer of pain floats to the surface of those purple deeps but is buried as quickly as it came, "Well, have a good rest, Cynder. I'll change shifts with Set when lessons finish."
I give him a brief nod, and he loosens his gentle hold on me, feet turning away for the small wooden door of my room. My heart plummets and the pounding desires fight harder against the walls of my brain, "Ralphus."
He turns immediately, head leaning forwards attentively.
"What's that pledge you made to me? That crest on my back."
The lightness in his movements drop, and yet instead, an unforeseeable loving softness melts his sculpted face like that infinite patience lovers treat each other with, like that tenderness I'd imagined mothers would give to their children unconditionally.
     "Tomorrow, I'll take you on the tour about the island you promised me, and I'll explain everything to you. Everything, Cynder, I promise."
     I can't bear to watch the wholehearted sacrifice of warm amour towards me, I look down at my feet, wrap the flicker of comfort and... anticipation around me like a blanket of trust, "Ok Ralphus, I'll wait for tomorrow."
     He nods, smiles a little, rubs the hilt of Aureus lightly, "Call me Ralph."
     An ununderstandable sadness sours my nose and tightens my throat like a loose I've never been free of, "Well then, I'll look forward to it, Ralph."
    The smile widens, he gives me a low bow and exits, feet silent against the floor, closing the flimsy little door delicately behind him. A long, stagnant breath expels itself from my lungs, and I retreat slowly back to my bed with its rumpled pillows, half-folded duvet, thin wooden headboard. How and why did all this happen? Is this another instance where God has taken it up upon themselves to dictate the path my feet should walk? 
     "You've gotten yourself into a lot of unneeded trouble human." Set says drily through the door, "The Lilith of the Helm too? Why, you've gotten yourself a harem." She laughs thin and utterly humourless.
     "Oh shut up." I snap back at her, burying my head in the musky softness of the flat pillows.
     But she continues laughing through the door, again and again, piercing straight through the roof my heart.