A familiar fate.
Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 5:22 am
Forty-two inches of blackened, arcane metal lay across her naked palms. Sheathed, because she cannot bear to touch the chill surface with her skin; her distaste is so profound that even the leather seems dangerously thin. She'd last drawn this rapier some six months ago, and some several years before that. Jorn Lundstroem had been the name of her need, that time, and then Zayken Perfect before him, and each occasion had left her heavy with triumph and regret; a sickening combination.
This weapon is every bit unnatural, every bit as tainted and magicked, as its owner. That had condemned it to a corner resting-place, there to gather dust between times of need. It was a terrible way to treat so fine a weapon. It was also a hateful reminder of her own nature.
But then, there have been so many of those lately. The nightmares, constant bane of her sleeping hours, had assumed a new tone over this last week, one that sleeping alone had done nothing to banish. In her dreams
...white teeth gleam. Her husband plucks the black eyes gently from his head; they are his most devoted offering to her. Something dances on the periphery of her vision, unspeakably beautiful, completely unattainable. It shines like silver, like the sun and moon; it sets her heart to racing, the blood to burning in her veins. The kiss shakes the earth and flays the skin from her bones; her soul cries At Last! as the taste of copper floods her mouth...
that black gap in her memory seems almost to be filled; implacable Fate skirts around its edges. In the waking world there is Agnieszka, the student into whose hands she'd finally placed killing steel. The girl's gasp, the girl's hesitance to touch that weapon... Oh, it might have been she herself, twelve years old and almost grown to womanhood, stealing into the training halls after her brother's lessons to imitate every movement she'd seen. In the waking world, there is Sawyer, riddled with a corruption more potent than her own. Eight men and women had once ridden into Kanpar village, where only Sawyer had proven capable of resisting the call of Perfection. A woman must consider that, if she'd tried -- really tried -- she might have somehow denied her own blood's ferrous taint.
Forty-two inches of blackened rapier-steel, so cold that it curdles the blood. In the end, it seems almost foolish to fear the magic sewn into its substance. It is, after all, a tool -- or she is, for the distinction between weapon and wielder had become blurred for her some years before now. And it is, after all, the very same corruption that flows in her own veins. That is something to think upon, when she finally belts the weapon about her hips.
This weapon is every bit unnatural, every bit as tainted and magicked, as its owner. That had condemned it to a corner resting-place, there to gather dust between times of need. It was a terrible way to treat so fine a weapon. It was also a hateful reminder of her own nature.
But then, there have been so many of those lately. The nightmares, constant bane of her sleeping hours, had assumed a new tone over this last week, one that sleeping alone had done nothing to banish. In her dreams
...white teeth gleam. Her husband plucks the black eyes gently from his head; they are his most devoted offering to her. Something dances on the periphery of her vision, unspeakably beautiful, completely unattainable. It shines like silver, like the sun and moon; it sets her heart to racing, the blood to burning in her veins. The kiss shakes the earth and flays the skin from her bones; her soul cries At Last! as the taste of copper floods her mouth...
that black gap in her memory seems almost to be filled; implacable Fate skirts around its edges. In the waking world there is Agnieszka, the student into whose hands she'd finally placed killing steel. The girl's gasp, the girl's hesitance to touch that weapon... Oh, it might have been she herself, twelve years old and almost grown to womanhood, stealing into the training halls after her brother's lessons to imitate every movement she'd seen. In the waking world, there is Sawyer, riddled with a corruption more potent than her own. Eight men and women had once ridden into Kanpar village, where only Sawyer had proven capable of resisting the call of Perfection. A woman must consider that, if she'd tried -- really tried -- she might have somehow denied her own blood's ferrous taint.
Forty-two inches of blackened rapier-steel, so cold that it curdles the blood. In the end, it seems almost foolish to fear the magic sewn into its substance. It is, after all, a tool -- or she is, for the distinction between weapon and wielder had become blurred for her some years before now. And it is, after all, the very same corruption that flows in her own veins. That is something to think upon, when she finally belts the weapon about her hips.