Pandora
♡
"I could never forget." I say more silently, shuddering slightly at the blurry stain in my memory that somehow knows to make me lose footing of that that's happening around me at the present.
"It's unpleasant, don't you think? For us to be here." I don't look away from the new couple that has set foot on the dance floor, leaving everyone to an expecting silence as Jonathan and the daughter of the Silver Scale Lord put their hands in classical dance formation. Their movements slow and easy at first yet people applaud them as if they mastered the key to the universe.
I spot Esmée conversing with the others, and I'm tempted to walk up to them. Behind the cloud of spectators, at the far opposite of the hall, Eliza finally gave in to the sexual tension she and Dhalia were sizzling with their stares, being anything but subtle in her lust for the woman as they're too immersed in their conversation to notices the odd looks they get from those around them.
"Why?"
"It makes me think about images I'd rather not see for myself. It gives me hope for a future, a tomorrow in which maybe...just maybe I could find happiness too," I murmur to no one but myself, the envy at seeing Eliza and Damien chasing the callings of their hearts resurfacing when I realise once again that my heart hasn't truly felt in far too long. It brings back the fear that maybe I'll never be a normal person again capable of emotions. Because once I submit to the realisation, then I'll truly be a monster.
"Such a victimised words,"his deep voice chuckles, although I sense the sadness in his letters, making me arch my neck towards him,"Why don't you seek for that happiness yourself instead of waiting for it? It's so unlike you to remain passive to fate." We look at each other for another minute, simply inspecting our features.
What is it about us that people call so hideous?
"For someone like me, it's far too late to search for things so far away. I decided that what truly is meant for me, will find me."
The sight must be odd to others, but I can't find it in me to care one bit for it. I'm not certain that he knows his Concealing Spell is wearing off, the paleness of his skin becoming more prominent as is the dark of his lips. Or perhaps he doesn't care for it at all, since he's a person like that. Finally he looks away, at the angel silently watching over us.
"Oh, Precious, don't you want to know how envious I would be, to get a taste of this sweet illusion people recall as happiness." The musical tone at which he speaks gives me a surge of confidence.
I move to stand in front of him, the velvet material of my tight dress fluttering against the floor with me, and I put my hand out for him to take. His expression asks for an explanation when seeing my smile, and I don't have to see my reflection to know that my dimple is showing.
"What are you planning?"
He finally places his hand in mine, and I recognise the smile from his voice when he asks me.
"I've heard that dancing has a way of giving people a taste of joy, I wish to try it out." By now, other couples have joined Jonathan and his fiancée on the dance floor, so our presence manages to go unnoticed for the most part.
"And you want to test your little theory with me?" He asks with a humourless chuckle, the hesitation clear in his moonlit eyes.
"Whom else should I do it with, If not you?" I ask, aching to understand my own insecurity when it comes to this...whatever this may be. His mouth slightly remains agape as we slowly make our way between the garmented bodies, and I halt at the border of the dance floor, not wanting to risk the attention to be directed to us rather than the main couple of the night.
Yet, as if sensing my intentions, Sir Ciaran recuperates from his quiet state, and smirks mischievously with an eye on Jonathan, who's executing the most picture-perfect version of a dance partner as he leads his beautiful fiancée over the dance floor while remaining at an acceptable distance from one another.
My companion on the other hand, has other ideas in mind as he doesn't bother to excuse himself when he interrupts people's dancing to pull me to the centre of the room. A gamboge sun drawn in the marble floor beneath our feet, stretching its sun rays to the border of the dance circle. At the tip of each ray dances a couple, and it doesn't take me more than a blink to understand what the bastard is doing.
Standing on the sun, we're the centre of this dance floor, the hall, and the universe. We're the sun every other noble twirls around. I look up at him with eyes wide of disbelief. At an engagement party, it's but common sense that the future groom and his bride are meant to be the main characters of the night.
"What are you thinking?!" I whisper yell at him as he places one his large hands at the base of my back, a couple of inches lower than where it's supposed to be. He smiles down at me, my eyes trailing his muscular arm as he lift mine with the fragile tip of his fingers, as if every one of my finger is worth more than the crystals lighting up our night.
My cheeks tinting in the deepest shade of the purest gold when he slowly, purposely, intertwines our hands. Instead of grasping them in his like the other partners have the decency of doing.
"It's high time your brother learns who's at the head of this family's future," he cheekily replies, no ounce of sarcasm in lacing his words. He's dead serious, and the thought of him thinking so highly at me awakens butterflies in my stomach, and I don't know whether or not I like the feel of them awakening from their slumber in his presence.
"On his engagement party?"
He slowly pulls us closer, and I raise an eyebrow when I notice just how delicately he handles me. I saw him as someone who would shamelessly take what he wants, I suppose it was wrong of me to judge him.
"Precious, we both know this is merely the first out of many he'll have," he chuckles, the warmth of his breath barely fanning against the strands of my baby hairs, and I find myself laughing with him. I must be a blind prude not to notice Jonathan flirtatious ways, which he most definitely earned from Father, and the image of him keeping his hands to himself is simply too funny not to ridicule.
And so, here we are, at the centre of the hall, unmoving and laughing - we must be perceived as a couple of odd birds.
And I don't give a damn about it.
As the flute breaths in the first note of the next song, the other instruments following their own partiture from the front corner where the orchestra is safe from the rest, our feet ever so slowly find their pace in which I follow him in his dance. The steps, unbeknownst to me, gaining the attention of the High Nobles, who look at us wide-eyed.
"You should laugh more," I tell him when the agreeable deep sound reaches close to my ear, where his mouth almost grazes it. His grip on my lower back tightening, and gently pushing me even closer to him. Our bodies an inch form touching. I expect repulsion to overtake my senses, the bees stinging my belly or the spiders crawling over my skin.
But then, the most unexpected happens.
She smiles. For the first time since she awoke in the depths of my consciousness, when I made my first kill on one of Father's missions, she doesn't crave for revenge.
The throat aching thirst for the blood of those who harmed us, silenced by the butterflies flapping their colourful wings. Tender caresses tickling the pits of my stomach, spreading over my belly and chest.
"You don't say," he teases, looking down on me with a new found warmth in them, "I was about to silence the orchestra to hear more of yours." We don't break eye contact as the rhythm of the music picks up, years of dance classes making it easy for me to follow his pace.
"You have such a way with words, yet after all this time, I still know nothing of you. While you know more of me than most people do," than almost anyone, I speak after he twirls me around himself, before catching with me close to him, his grip on my hand loosening at my words.
"Doesn't this mysterious aura make me so much more interesting," he asks tilting his head a bit sideways, examining my reaction. By now, most couples have stepped away from the floor to let new ones have their turn, us being the only one showing no intend of abandoning our pied-déstale.
"No, only suspicious." I look away when his stare becomes too much to bare, as if he's reading the soul of me, knowing very well that my actions couldn't contradict what I speak any more than they already do.
"Well then, Precious, feel free to ask. What about me do you find so suspicious?"
I innerly scoff at that. A better question would be what don't I find questionable about this man. Being it his appearance, or the darkness looming around him, or the oppressing power oozing from every movement of his.
Even the fear clouding above those around him. This man is an enigma on his own right, and I'm desperate to unravel him. Hoping that it would solve the mystery burning my chest to flames. And yet, all I can think of asking at this moment, in this time.
As I draw the constellations of silver specks in his azure eyes, his hand moving from my lower back upwards to draw circles on my hip with his thumb. When he twirls me around once more, the heels of my shoes drawing the edges of the sun, burning a golden far less heated than the blush spreading over my cheekbones. All I can think of asking is:
"Why me?" I say softly when our fronts clash again, the audience watching our every move long forgotten, only him mattering enough for my eyes to see. The question isn't one I would care to ask, seeing that normally people address me in the hope of getting something out of me. I could also kill him would he try anything with me, although it will probably be more of an attempt rather than an execution.
I just - I just want to know. What hunger I'm craving to appease, what it is I'm feeling, and what it is I must do to stop it.
I'm scared.
I haven't felt fear in a long long time. I have felt afraid, at times. Of course. But, it's been many years since I have felt her cold, rotting fingers grasp my throat and squeeze it.
No air.
No tears.
A bone shivering breath fanning against my being, rendering me powerless against her hold on my heart. At the time my family would hide me beneath the ground of our catacombs, I was locked away in the dungeons of the deepest sorrow, for years. Since then, emotions became a liability, a defining silence in my horizon. It was neither night, or day. No sun rose, no moon lit up the dark. Only a greyness stretching over the furthest parts of me. Life was an out of body experience where I obeyed, killed, laid still, and died.
I'm scared.
Because ever since meeting him, I've felt more annoyance than ever before. More laughter. More reassurance.
More.
He makes me want to escape out of my prison of untainted numbness. The only problem, apart from my apprehensive behaviour towards anything that's out of my comfort zone, is that I've long lost the key. For nights, I've searched relentlessly for it, but it's lost. And now I'm locked up, and there's no way out.
No way out.
"Why, since the start, have you kept bothering with me? You carry some heavy rumours with you, I must say, and all of them prove your...disinterest for 'regular' mortals," I finish, aware that I'm putting all my cards on the table for him to see, but too desperate for answers to care that my walls are breaking down again.
He manages to get through me, and for the first time in forever I feel the freeing liberation of hope. A hope that sparks fireworks and butterflies when his full lips curve into a dimpled smile, and I gasp surprised when both his hands grab my hips and hold me in the air, forcing me to hold his shoulders for support. He twirls around only twice, but as if time slows down to a steady heartbeat, I look down on him. Our noses touching. We stay like this for an eternal moment, both our smiles more genuine than they've ever been.
Every fibre of my being aware of the pull he has on me. I see it again in his eyes, that strange glint that brings out their warmth hidden deep beneath the distant haze, and this time I dare to recognise it.
Home.
He looks like a man who found his forever home.
"Because,"he softly says when my feet touch the ground, our steps halt and we stay like this, "Talking to you is like finding roof from an everlasting rain storm. And Gods know how horrible rain is for my hair." His chuckle is short, shallow. His index not bothering to move the strand that's troubling his sight.
"Because," he repeats once again, his voice an octave lower, his thump stroking upwards in a slow intending motion. Going over my ribs, stopping before he can stroke over the parts of me that would leave me weak yet guarded for his touch.
"Every moment I'm fortunate enough to have your eyes on me, I feel more alive than I ever have. Because during the thoughtless conversations we had waiting for the break of another day, I felt more humanity in me than the long years spend alone. And for some odd, inexplicable, and very idiotic reason only when I'm with you, does time flow for me. A creature who's time has stopped for so long, that he can't remember feeling, the thrill of coming one step closer to death. "
My mouth falls open. Teacher would whip my calves with a stick would she take notice of it.
Where is the cranky woman when I need her?
I always know what to tell him, I'm always prepared for comebacks. Words have never before been my nemesis, yet here I am finding myself speechless.
Gods please answer me, what in the world do I say to this?
"Don't you think that it's a bit theatrical? You almost sound like a chivalrous character from a novel," I barely manage to stutter. Sounding like a tease, yet feeling like a complete moron for not knowing to come up with something better.
At my question, he tips me over, arching my back. The floor becomes my sky, and the world turns upside down as I cross gazes with the blazing stare of my brother. The tall raven haired epitome of beauty stands next to him in her midnight gown. The scales sewn to her midriff in a corset of shimmering silver.
Her forest green eyes follow my dance partner in a hypnotised daze. Lust evident in them. Almost as evident as the glare she sends my way when his curious hand wanders over my bare leg he holds hooked around his waist. Creeping closer and closer until I look up at him, only to see the pervert grin cheekily. Looking nowhere else but at me, his other hand holds the back of my neck to gently pull me up.
"Didn't you know? My snow white sterling is waiting outside, ready to take us away."The seriousness in his voice makes me pause and I blame my humiliatingly low alcohol tolerance for what I'm about to do. Slowly, we approach each other and I follow his lead when his eyes turn to my lips. My hand lifts itself on its own accord.
I reach his face - the smooth cheeks that I've always wanted to trace the dark veins of since the first time that I saw him that night in the woods. I wonder If he feels as cold as he looks. The tips of my fingers graze his jaw in a feathery touch, a sharp breath intake sounding from his lips when the sizzling electricity sparking between us calms into the most appeasing warmth. His pupils dilate, a jade onyx taking over his blue irises. The hand, still placed on the back of my neck, moving to stroke my throat.
Then, out of nowhere, from the depths of the ocean that had laid calm from the day I left the place I once called my home, I hear it.
A laughter.
His laughter.
The man who's touches will haunt my body for the rest of my life, no matter how many times I emerge myself in steaming, flower scented water. The scars of his sick affection tainting my body as if I had acquired them yesterday. The pressure of his hard member against my lower back imprinted in my memories for the rest of my days. Even the...taste of him is fresh on my tastebuds, leaving a bitter aftertaste. I freeze involuntarily, my heart picking up at a dangerous rate, and my palms become sweaty.
The breathlessness at which I turn around would make it seem as if my naked body is still being assaulted by his. The low grunts of his pleasure making my ear itch. It takes every thing me not to look over my shoulder to make sure that no humid body presses against mine. I take a step back, then another, and another. The questioning voice of Sir Ciaran drowns under the thunderstorms and high waves clashing ferociously.
What am I even doing here?
As composed as I manage to hold myself together, I walk away from him and him. Too preoccupied to escape everything to notice my Prince Charming, or more so, my villain, reaching for me. Missing me by an inch. I don't notice the glare of a bride-to be following me, as if it would matter enough to be noticed that I'm hated by yet another person.
The windows letting the clear moonlight passing through, enlighten the hallways minimally. Just enough for me to not to walk into a wall, although I'm quite certain that the tears threatening to fall make sure enough of that probability to happen.
And it does. Too preoccupied with not smudging my makeup by looking directly at my feet, I take the next turn a bit too soon and collide with the stone wall.
Perfect, just wonderful. I'm hungry. My parents cannot fandom to bear with the mere existence of me. My brother, and his wife-to-be now, rather would have me dead than alive. And as if none of that is enough, I pretty much ruined any possible future of something that could possibly, remotely take the shape of happiness. The soles of my high heels tap against the marble floor as I hastily walk down the hallways, my flight instinct driving me to find comfort at the one place in this Palace that has yet to be tainted by bloodstained memories.
When I was still young and hopeful, I've always dreamed of living my very own romance story, but never did I expect it to take the turn of a tragedy.
Life is funny like that, sometimes.