Too Dark To See - [Heather vs Aria, Day 7]

When her blade follows the blinding blow of her words and unpins the flesh of my inner thigh, I stumble back and watch with vacant eyes as the blood drips from the once gauzy white material of my toga. With a trembling hand, I press an open palm to the stinging and fresh wound, only to have the indent of my own blood embedded upon the valleys of my flesh.

For once, I got what I deserve.

Aria Wolfe is as feather light as the weight of her words carry. I know that stoic look on her face, I know that quiver of her lips, I know that vacancy of her eyes. I know it all too well, and I know it all unwillingly. Guilt anchors our souls down, down, down, while we're left wandering and wondering if we'll ever reach the top again.

"But you don't fear of losing, do you?" I'm asking too many questions, and sinners don't ask before they sin, and murderers don't warn before they kill - and I am both of those things at once, yet in this brave yet cowardly defiance, maybe I'm not those things at all - "You're scared of winning."

My eyes follow the gleaming silver enter her chest - a shiny needle puncturing the heart of another tattered doll. A shriek escapes my lips when the blood begins to pour, pour, pour. Eight's hand grips the handle of my weapon, gently pulling it out from where it's lodged between her ribs. I can feel the bile rising in my throat as I clench my eyes shut, the ends of my fingernails embedding tiny crescent moons into the palm of my hand.

Oh, it was never my intention to kill. It was never my intention to hurt anyone.

I'm a ghost in the reflection of the knife, which lands with a soft thud along the black, black, black ground. Red rimmed eyes, dull stringed hair, pale haunting skin. Aria Wolfe's blood cloaks the dagger in a blinding disarray of red, a filmy halo smeared across my tiny reflection in the blade. My eyes clench shut again, but I can't bring myself to face the girl I will would've almost killed until her piercing words bring me out of my reverie.

"I'm not scared!" She spits at me, her eyes wide with anger and guilt and hatred and fear when she raises her hand, ready to strike. The chants ring out in clipped speeches between her gritted teeth, but I'm not sure if it's my tears or hers that are clouding my vision. "I'm not scared! I'm not scared! I'm not scared!"

Her own weapon finds my shoulder blade, drawing more blood from a girl who's heart stopped beating a long time ago. I stumble back in pain, my vision spinning and becoming cloudy from the amount of blood that's managed to spill out of my hollow body.

Her words bounce off of me, though, it's shock absorbing itself into the nerves of my body. Not scared? If that were the case, then Aria Wolfe knows nothing.

I've lived my entire life in fear. I breathe fear, and tread upon it's unstable grounds. It encompasses my soul, entangles itself with my bones and bites into my flesh. I live in fear everyday - and I know Fear when I see it.

The black ground is tainted with the crimson blood spilling over like the cotton white wisps and spray of the sea. And we are the oceans - too caught up in our own storms and hurricanes and trauma to realize we are drowning. We swallow unsuspecting boats in our menacing wakes, heave their splintered wooden boards against jagged rocks that lie along the coast, and attempt to wrangle the last breath out of a sailor with a tight grip we no longer can control even if we wanted to. But I want to control myself, I want to unpin the knife from Aria Wolfe's chest and from Aria Wolfe's hand, tug my blade out from Ailis Copper's last and desperate gasp, pull back the spear lodged in Alaska Putley's skull. Let me go back to the time where I was just the river that never knew she'd one day flow out and be lost among the wretches of the sea -

But, we're too far back now to set sail home.

Why can't I go home? Why can't I pull back that cloak of innocence that always used to once shield me from reality's burning rays? Why can't I race down back that narrow path I took when I first let the handle of my spear soar into Alaska's eye? Why can't I never unsee the look on Learna Libertine's, Alaska Putley's, or Ailis Copper's face? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

"Because fear cuts deeper than swords."

We are two oceans that will never give up fighting - and two little girls that will never win.

"Only if you let it."






[[ooc - also TY CLOVER FOR GIVING ME HEATHER'S DIALOGUE IN THIS. <33]]

I see Learna Libertine in every drop of blood (that is as red as her hair once was) that spurts from Aria Wolfe's hand... or what used to be of it, anyway. The five fingers fall limply to the ground the same moment I realize I am wrong.

Because we are no oceans, with no different concentrations or different waters meddling with each other under a cloak of a hurricane. For the sea is blood red, red, red with our sins, and it's waves stink of our murder - and I am only the bird trying not to dip the tips of my wings with the colossal tsunamis, and Aria Wolfe is the moon who's gravitating orbit pulls the sea of blood ever closer to my flight. I am dead wrong.

Eight's screaming at me about broken promises and shattered words that have lost all meaning once our names were chosen out of thousands from one pristine glass bowl. Her words are more like a vibration, though, behind the blurring and ringing in my ears - all the sounds around us melting together until the only thing I'm sure I hear is Learna's cries and her killers' taunts. (“Might want to cover your eyes little Libertine. Don’t want to die like your sister did.” “Awww, baby Libertine. Looks like you’re having a bit of trouble. Need a hand with that?” “Oh I don’t know, Ki. I think she can handle it.” "Take her, she's all yours. Make her scream, babe." "This is goodnight.")

"This is goodnight."

My words are breathless when I stumble over them, the taste bitter on my tongue as I try to swallow my realization. I blink, and in that second of darkness, the spark of silver and the clash of metal and the iron scent of blood and the whir of swords fill my entire being - because she was there, too. She ran away from Little Libertine (like how I had ran away from her, too) and she didn't even look back. No remorse. No pain. No sorrow. No guilt. Well, she's paying for it now, anyway, isn't she?

Then, again, so aren't I?

"You were there," I whisper, the core of my entire body shaking when I speak the tiny words which carry so much weight. I am suddenly so afraid of her, of this place, of these games, of myself - that I don't have enough time to think when I strike again.

"You were there when she died."




[[ooc - THANK YOU AGAIN SO MUCH CLOVER DARLING FOR HELPING WITH HEATER'S DIALOGUE IN THIS POST <33]]

I feel every atom of that sharp blade cut through the threads of my flesh, puncturing organs and vessels and nerves and veins along the way. I don't scream, I don't cry, I don't move. The shock or the pain paralyzes my body in a fear greater than any I've felt before. I drop to the ground clutching my middle, feeling the blood pour out into my cupped palm.

Once, when I had a fever during winter, Auntie told me stories of my mother while I watched a snow storm batter the rusted glass window. My mind grew hazy as my flesh grew hotter, with each warm syllable of the stories blanketing my body with a peaceful comfort. I don't remember much from that one week, and what I do remember are like patchy clips from an old movie film - Auntie whispering to me stories of her and my mother when they were young, the branches of a whittled tree brushing against my bedroom window, the boiling heat of my fever swallowing my entire body whole , Auntie crying into Uncle's arms as a doctor with a shaking head examines my body, and a woman with golden hair like mine and a song walking towards me with open arms. When I woke up the next morning, the fever gone from my bed, I shed tears for the woman I thought could bring me home.

She isn't with me today, her song and her outstretched arms fading gently from my memory. The golden band around my finger anchors me to this reality, though, and as the first gasp of pain and panic begins to escape my lips, I really wish it hadn't.

I'm no more than a rag doll, dragged across a brazen ground with Aria Wolfe's childish and wicked laughs tugging me forward. Her four fingers wound around my limp wrist and drag my tattered corpse body along with her. I'm a child's toy. I'm nothing but something play with until I've been destroyed. And it's Aria Wolfe who destroys me, who drags me to the storms of her own raging fire and watches with glinting eyes as I am burned.

Yet, I can manage no hatred towards my destroyer when her sword flies forward and cuts off an ear. At least I will not be able to hear my own screams.