i look at the world all starry-eyed and loose-jawed and i say

I’m going to blow them all away.

but my shadow opens its hungry mouth

and says to me, smugness dripping from its teeth

I’ve already blown them all away.

And I have the medals to prove it.

and then what do i do?

--

#poetry #short #freeverse

She is trapped.

(That’s the first impression you get.)

She looks lonely, too.

Paper thin and hollowed out, like she’s on strings,

like without them she might sink down into the Earth.

Her eyes, though - your own.

Pleading,

but you feel none of the agony that you see in her.

Be careful. She’s lethal.

She’ll caress your hair like a mother’s lullaby until she thinks you’re asleep

then she’ll wrap her fingers around the trust you have mistakenly given her

and she will drag you by the skin into the cage that she has built for herself.

And you have not known what it means to be trapped

until you feel the cold take hold of your very bones

and turn your blood to dry ice,

you will not know what it means to be trapped

until your limbs only move with hers

and her wolfish smile bares your teeth,

and her eyes are lit with ecstacy

while yours are brimming with defeat --

because it hurts.

This is what you have become, this is what she has done to you,

and it hurts.

(That’s the last impression you get.)

You are trapped.

#poetry #freeverse

Yesterday found me down on my knees

Alone, with nothing but the weight I hold,

Tomorrow will find my burning, bleeding feet

From how I leapt to brush my fingers to gold.

The bar is set so high that I'd need wings-

I'd need to fly to reach the things I've dreamt.

But I wasn't born with any of those blessings;

All I have is a heart of failed attempts.

Tomorrow I'll jump, I know it could be rough.

I'll bleed, but I think I could reach the sun.

And if, when I come down, it's not enough,

I'll know it's time to take my dreams and run.

The things I want have always been so close,

And after all of this, I won't let go.

--

#sonnet

Immortality

is a slow, relentless torture

condemned to heaving footsteps,

where your heart is tied to a past that is slowly receding

farther, and farther and farther

try to imagine the life slipping through your fingers

like water, like smoke;

and you hold so tight your fingers start to bleed

but you are left with nothing more than the unfamiliar shades of a foreign world

think of every last drop of love that you have ever felt

and it drains

think of every mark you have every made

dirty, fading, forgotten

think of every pen you have used,

pen on paper to write out everything you can’t say,

to write out everything that’s tearing you apart

bled dry.

Think of a deathless hell.

That is immortality.

--

#poem #poetry #freeverse

At age eleven, Elain fractured her hand. The bones in her palm cracked straight through in two places, crushed under the weight of her own body.

She’d been scaling the monkey bars to sit on top and swing her legs off the side, because it was cool to do that sort of thing, and she’d done it so many times that it was nothing new. She’d lain lazily across it. The entire metal structure had been ablaze under the insistent rays of the sun.

Penny’s shiny hair, as she picked her way across the playground, caught Elain’s gaze.

Something shifted, behind her. Penny seemed unbothered, but whatever was behind her, it was moving –-

Elain blinked her eyes, rapid, trying to clear her vision to better see the strange thing.

Nothing.

Penny moved forward, again, and this time she saw Elain. She waved a bright “hello” to her sister.

Elain moved her hand from under her chin so she could wave back.

And there, the thing from before --

It moved again --

“Penny,” Elain’s voice sputtered, frantic. Her eyes blew wide as she gripped the metal bars to lean over the edge. “Penny, look –- ”

Penny glanced over her shoulder, but she didn’t see anything. No, no, Elain needed to protect her –-

Her hand slipped on the edge of the structure, and she plunged forward with all the weight in her, heart flying up and lodging in her throat. A terrible flash of panic leaked in.

The next thing she remembers is the insistent throbbing of her hand, trapped between her ribs and the splintering wood-chips.

Penny hovered over her, hands gently pulling Elain’s arm. She cradled the limb like it was a butterfly, fragile-like.

Elain hardly recognized it as her own hand. It must have swelled to the size of a tennis ball.

Penny cupped it in her palm, whispering something indiscernible, and all Elain understood was the confusion lacing her tone.

(There was nothing behind Penny.)

**

It has been eight years since that fracture. Elain’s hand healed fantastically, and the family doctor assured she would never have to worry about it again. The memory collects dust in the cramped corners of her mind.

She tucks her hand under her pillow, an empty gaze trained on the window. It’s storming outside, monsoon season. A lulling sound.

Thunder cracks loud like a whip through the room. At its heels comes a jarring crash.

Elain jolts upright, and tightens her fingers against the covers, waiting for another sound. Because Penny’s room is upstairs; the crash must have come from her. It must have.

The house is still, but Elain knows instinct when she feels it, swirling low and ominous in her belly.

Did she forget to lock the front door again? She gets so distracted. If she forgot to lock the door -- if there’s someone hurting Penny -- if it’s her fault --

She wouldn’t forgive herself.

Elain pitches out of bed, and almost trips on her way up the stairs, toes caught on the second-to-last step, but she emerges intact. She peers down the cramped hallway - Penny’s room is the second door. It’s silent.

Her skin prickles. Carefully, she toes the door open.

The first thing that catches her eye is shattered glass. Sharp edges and scarce light flashing off the shards and onto the walls. The bed covers are tousled, bunched up.

A shadow of a person that is not supposed to be there.

Fear spikes through her veins so rapidly her blood numbs into ice, and she lurches forward. The glass to her right is what remains of Penny’s vanity mirror - now in pieces, and as the dark mass of a stranger in Penny’s room whips around to evade Elain’s grasp, Elain’s fingers catch on the glass in an attempt to remain upright.

A shard carves into the soft part of her palm, and it rips a pained shriek from her throat. Blood swells from the wound, and she can feel it along her palm, viscous and lukewarm. Immediately she pulls her hand away, and cradles it against her chest.

The figure moves closer, and Elain thinks it might be whispering something, but the sound of it is swirled with the thrumming of Elain’s pulse, and she can’t comprehend it.

With a jerk of a movement Elain glances over at the bed, where a lump sits comfortably, swathed in bed covers. That’s Penny. She looks back at the dark figure before her. That’s not Penny.

Life returns to her limbs. Her hands fly to the figure, clasping around where the neck must be. This is defense - this is for her, this is for Penny --

The figure’s fingers come to claw at where Elain has tightened her hands, and they bend underneath the pressure.

“Don’t - ” she manages, through clenched teeth, as loud as she dares, “I’m protecting her.”

A choking sound reaches Elain’s ears, past the thud-thud-thud of her heartbeat. It sounds like a plea, but Elain’s eyebrows draw closer together in concentration, and she clenches her fingers tighter. She can’t let up now - she’s so close --

The meager light reflecting around the room illuminates the shine of blood against the figure’s throat as the body goes still between her hands, dead weight crumpling. Elain almost follows it down, but she’s snapped out of her stupor by the dull crack of the intruder’s skull against the bedframe, and stands slowly.

She blinks, reeling, and takes a deep, calming breath. She’s done it. Another glance to the bed confirms it - Penny’s unmistakeable figure lies still under the cover.

Elain wipes the blood on her hand against her nightgown, but the smear and the strain of her skin remind her that there’s still an open wound. The previously absent pain comes rushing back, and she grimaces for it.

She turns, careful to skirt around the glass lest it dig into the tender skin of her foot, and slips back to her room.

**

Elain had woken to a smarting gash on the palm of her right hand, painting a nasty picture with coppery blood on her pillow and the side of her nightgown.

A shame - it had always been her favorite nightgown.

Daylight slashes across the room in beams, and Elain waits and listens. Penny should be up by now, clattering about in the kitchen.

Can’t hear a thing.

After a few moments, she decides to go check on Penny herself. She knocks lightly before pushing the door ajar.

“Penny?” Elain calls, softly. She sees Penny’s bright hair first, splayed against the white duvet.

She moves a little further into the room.

The shattered mirror on the adjacent wall casts shards of light across the room.

There’s blood smeared on some fragments of glass. The scent of it, stagnant and corrosive, invades. Her throat is uneasy when she tries again, “Penny?”

Penny doesn’t move. The hair on the bed, Elain notices, is attached not to the figure under the covers but rather to a static-looking body slumped unnaturally against the covers. The same shade of carmine-red is stamped across the neck in broken fingerprints.

An acerbic feeling rises up in the pit of her stomach, lapping at her lungs. The hoarse feeling in her throat persists when she tries to force it back down. “Penny?”

Penny is still, unmoving, and glassy eyes are focused on a spot above Elain’s head.

A horrible, choked sound wrestles itself from Elain’s throat. She feels her knees buckle beneath her, and the carpet rushes up to meet her before she catches herself on her hands and knees.

No.

Penny will wake, now that Elain’s made such a loud noise, she will wake and she will look at Elain and tell her good morning --

No.

Elain turns as fast as she dares, her messy hair whipping around and catching against her lips. Suddenly, the carpet is too far below her and the ceiling is too high above.

Blindly she pushes downstairs, almost slips down the last few steps, and the smell of her fresh omelet is sickening. It threatens to bring bile up; but all that emerge are breathless dry heaves.

The air outside is too sharp, in the same way that the air inside had been too dull. It pushes and stings and sticks to the underside of her skin.

Elain does not stop moving until fallen brown leaves mask the uneven thud-thud-thud of her footsteps -- until her hand, aching, snags on the rough bark of a tree and starts to leave a trail of glistening red drops where she goes.

She does not stop moving until her lungs strain with the effort and her nightgown is disheveled and torn in three places.

She falls to her knees gracelessly, then rests her back against a wide tree trunk. The scenery is unfamiliar; the adrenalin seeps out of her system slowly, so slowly, and it’s only replaced by dread.

Elain thinks, I do not know how to get home.

Elain thinks, that’s alright.

Penny will find me.

**

#prose #fiction #shortstory #narrative #horror

The sense of a thunderstorm hangs in the air, thick and heavy. It’s a feeling that pricks at Ilya’s skin, and the dark clouds shrouding the sky lend themselves to something like dread.

She sits with her legs hooked over the rocky edge of the cliff. Gravel digs into the skin behind her knees, but instead she peers at the docks below, at the workers scuttling about. Two hundred metres below, a sailor steps onto his barge and begins to unfasten the mooring ties.

Ilya squints. Her fingers curl against the loose dirt on the ground beneath her. Something should be happening.

The sailor starts the process of hoisting the sails. From her post on the cliff, Ilya can almost hear the sound of the billowing fabric as it catches the whipping wind.

Vaguely, it crosses her mind that it’s not right weather for sailing. There’s going to be a storm. But with soldiers on the battlefront waiting to be driven through with swords, she supposes the sailor below has the same ideas as she does; back here, in a port city away from the action, they might as well do what they must to keep the country running.

She’s getting distracted.

The wind begins to blow a little stronger. It’s a sign that she should get under a roof, behind a door, away from the brewing storm.

But there is something that has to happen, first.

Yes –

There.

It’s starting.

The boat she’s been watching begins to sink. Lower, and lower, and lower. She watches as the little figure of the sailor scrambles in alarm, his navy cap threatening to careen off into the wind. The hull of the boat disappears completely under the murky line of sea. Water begins to spill onto the deck.

The sailor seems to abandon hope of salvaging his craft, and chooses to instead rush back to the dock, where he crouches to watch the last of the rigging vanish into the darkening sea.

Ilya stands, careful to keep her feet safely away from the precipice. Her pouch is fastened snugly around her waist, and she pulls her worn coat over her shoulders before beginning down the path back to the outskirts of the city.

She doesn’t get very far.

The sharp rustle of fabric is the only warning she has before there’s an insistent weight pressing against her ribs. Immediately, another weight snakes up to press against her throat and Ilya’s choking on her own breath.

“I know exactly what you do.” The voice comes from somewhere behind her ear, low and hard. A flash of silver catches Ilya’s attention just inside her peripheral vision, as she feels the tip of the blade pressing against the skin of her neck. “And if you try to open your mouth, I’ll make sure you never speak again.”

A horrible mixture of fear and adrenaline shoots through her veins with alarming speed. She’s vibrating with it, wrangled into submission, and she doesn’t even attempt to nod her affirmation to her captor.

“When you get home, pack what you need for a fortnight’s trip.”

The words hardly register in Ilya’s panicking mind, but ‘fortnight’ definitely echoes in her ears.

Slowly, Ilya tries to pry her jaw open, strained against the arm pressing on the column of her throat, but it only prompts the woman holding her to tighten her grip. Ilya’s not sure if she’s losing blood circulation to her head or if there’s too much blood rushing to her head. “Please,” she tries, in a last attempt to break the hold.

Her assailant hesitates, tensing at a strange angle, and loosens her grip. Air rushes back to Ilya’s lungs in a flood of oxygen that feels like mercy and also like an early death. Ilya coughs. So does her attacker.

Despite the clawing urge to turn and catch a glimpse of the stranger, she’s kept enough wits about her to know that movement would still mean a quick end to her life.

“What do you need?” She learned so long ago that asking for an identity would be useless. Efficiency and all, because the people that ask Ilya for things tend to be masterful liars anyway.

“Just your abilities. Be ready. I’ll reach you again in two days.”

Finality falls with the order, and before Ilya’s tangled thoughts can form sentences, questions, the pressure against her ribs and her neck is whisked away. It leaves behind a bare hollow.

Ilya whirls around to steal a glance at the assailant. Her eyes land on nothing but landscape, a roiling ocean and a murky sky, the dirt on the path behind her looking for all the world untouched. No trace left.

The adrenaline that had surged earlier begins to evaporate. Frantic breaths turn to a drawn-out inhale-and-exhale pattern, and her heartbeat slows until it’s steady, but nothing happens to the prickling skin that warns danger, danger, danger.

Two days. A fortnight’s trip.

Ilya’s regular clientele, if they can be called that, are hardly ever this dramatic. They like to be discreet, and never show their faces, but the offers she receives never take more than a week to carry out, and then it’s on her own time, so long as she gets it done.

She’s never met a client in person, never been close enough to see their face, much less to be held at knifepoint.

Ilya waits on that sparse path until she’s steady enough on her feet to make her footfalls sound normal again to her own ears, and she picks her way down the hill, as if nothing had happened at all.

And if she’s honest with herself, if not for the still-warm feeling behind her neck left by the stranger, and if not for the indent left on her neck where the knife had nudged her skin with a sharp threat, she would have forgotten about the incident entirely.

As it is, she’s painfully aware that she has two days before her apparent mistakes come to catch up to her.

~

The day breaks with an apprehension that Ilya does not want to address.

Sunlight prickles over her skin like it knows exactly what’s going through her mind. Like it’s watching, warning, looming.

Perhaps it was only a threat, she thinks. Perhaps there’s nothing more to it.

But as she tucks her pocketknife into the folds of her tunic at her waist, as she slides the sharpest hairpin she owns into her ponytail, she knows she’s lying to herself.

The third time that Ilya’s heart rate leaps obscenely at a stray sound outside her window, she tucks an apple into her waist pouch, fastens her worn coat around her shoulders, and locks the front door behind her.

If she disappears into Reinsculd’s thick daytime crowds and returns to her home with the cover of dusk, she might be free of the unsettling promise that has settled around her like an insistent raincloud.

‘I’ll reach you again in two days.’

And what a threat to promise.

Never, in Ilya’s years of discreet operations, in Ilya’s years of experience with illicit requests, had she considered that she might end up too far in to dig herself out.

With the setting sun lighting up the sky behind her back, Ilya pushes the key into its lock again. The door swings open in the same way it always has, but something settles between Ilya’s ribs when she feels the heavy air inside. It’s a little like defeat.

The pocketknife that she flicks open suddenly seems too small for the situation, almost like a child trying to measure up to a beast. She grips it between her fingers anyway.

The door falls behind her, taking with it the last of the sunlight.

“Is that you, Ilya?”

For all she’s prepared, Ilya startles at the sound, nearly dropping the damn knife on her foot. First shock, then apprehension, begin to twine into her nerves.

Dimly, she sees movement at the door to her bedroom, and a sigh wafts into the space between them. “I don’t know what you expected.”

Now it’s dread. That scraping voice, she knows it.

Ilya blurts the first question that comes to her tongue. “Why do you need me?”

The modest lights on Ilya’s walls flicker to life, casting the stranger before Ilya in an artificial glow. Ilya’s not sure what she thought she would see, but it isn’t a woman hardly older than she, it isn’t dark military-grade gear, and it definitely isn’t a curious expression.

Ilya sees all of those things. And it must show on her face, because the woman clicks her tongue and shifts to cross her arms. “Travel by sea would be so much easier with a siren on my side. Not to mention border patrol.”

“Border patrol?”

The woman casts her eyes towards the ceiling. She waits a few breaths (and a cough) before deigning to answer. “Are you packed?”

“Destination?”

“We’re crossing the border. Cerac.”

This time, Ilya does drop the knife. It clatters sharply onto the floor, and the loss of something to hold makes Ilya’s fingers itch. Her hands fly to the strap of her satchel instead. “No.” She settles back on her heels. “No, I refuse. You can go on that suicide mission on your own.”

The woman’s eyebrows stitch together, her shoulders pushing back in a show of strength, and there’s a slow irritation written on her face. Ilya doesn’t move a centimetre. “I’m not asking. If you’re not going to pack anything, we’ll leave right now.”

There’s a command infused into the words, and it pricks at Ilya’s chest in a way that leaves her scowling. “I operate in Reinsculd, and in Reinsculd only. I’m not leaving this city.”

“I think you should know that I’m fully capable and willing to knock you out right now and carry you onto a boat. I suggest you do as I ask.”

Ilya cocks her head to the side. “Why? What’s in it for me?”

The woman’s first response is a hacking cough, and it sounds like her throat is being dragged inside-out, but it stops abruptly. Her second response is narrowed eyes. “Compensation, of course. I’m no barbarian. You’ll be paid for your time.”

The offer is immediately more appealing. The prospect of it settles against Ilya’s spine.

No. She can’t.

“It’s a death wish.” Then, after a beat, with sarcasm dripping right off the words, “There’s a war on, you know.”

“I know,” the woman snaps. She has an accent, Ilya notes idly, something that sounds northern and sharpens the vowels in her words.

“Your offer is tempting. But I’d rather turn you down than risk my life trying to smuggle you to Cerac.”

“I can guarantee your safety at the least. And you’ll receive your compensation as soon as I’m where I need to be.”

There’s a retort resting on Ilya’s tongue, but she snaps her mouth shut before it can escape. She’s not looking to get run through with a knife tonight. Instead, she says, “Do I get twenty-four hours to consider?”

“You had forty-eight.”

“You never mentioned the border.”

Agitated, the woman exhales, hard. It’s almost as if Ilya can see the gears shifting inside her mind, or maybe it’s the incessant bouncing of her leg that gives it away. “You get five minutes.”

That’s fine. “My answer is no.”

The woman purses her lips. She’s looking at Ilya like someone might look at a misbehaving kitten. “Courtesy five minutes. Really, I wanted you to come along easy. That’s why I asked.”

And the woman’s hand comes up faster than the light can follow it, leveling right at Ilya’s neck, and then there’s nothing but the razor-like sting of a dart. Warmth blooms beneath her skin.

The walls curve in a horrifying way, the expression on the woman’s face shifts to something hard and defiant, and that’s all Ilya sees before her consciousness gives out.

~

It’s utterly silent when Ilya comes to again. She hears the rattle of her breath louder than anything else.

Tight rope binds her wrists behind her back, and a metal column stretching from the ceiling to the ground presses at an odd angle along her spine. It’s an incredibly awkward position to be in.

She twists her neck, stretching for a flicker of light and any sign of life, and is rewarded with telltale staccato inhales and exhales, somewhere to her left.

That’s… a slight consolation.

Ilya pulls at the rope. The motion scrapes the thick material against her raw wrists, and doubtlessly leaves the skin sore and perhaps bleeding, but there’s not much else to be done for it.

For her struggle she is rewarded with an interruption in the pattern of her companion’s breaths, and replaced by the harsh clang of metal against metal.

A soft curse, in a language she doesn’t recognize, emanates from that direction.

Hesitantly, unsure if it would change her situation, Ilya calls out, “Hello?”

A sharp breath. “Ilya?”

“How do you know my name?”

Short, rough laugh. Followed by a cough. “You might remember me. I shot you in the neck.”

Ilya feels horror settling in the pores of her skin at that. It was – but she wouldn’t have a reason to –

“You sedated me, then tied up both of us? What kind of plan is that?”

The answering scoff echoes through the dark room. It must be a basement of some sort, Ilya realizes, musty and unused. Dark.

“No, idiot, someone else did this. I don’t know who it was.” The same metallic scrape from earlier is repeated.

Ilya’s eyebrows draw together. “You have metal cuffs?”

A hum in response.

“Mine are rope.”

“Well, that’s easy. You’ll have to come pick the lock on mine, then. I can’t reach it.”

“I would,” Ilya drawls, and strugg, “but I’m not a criminal, and I don’t know how to get out of rope cuffs.”

Slowly, Ilya is directed to twist her hands, pull at the knot just so, shimmy out, until – ah. It falls loose.

As soon as Ilya stands, nausea pulls a hood over her eyes, until her limited vision is swimming and she falls against the metal column for some semblance of support. The sound isn’t so important as the way her feet seem to be slipping on the cold, dirty floor. She can’t keep her balance.

Faintly, she hears, “What’s wrong? What happened?”

She wrangles out some sort of response, before pinpointing the reason: the raised, aching spot on her neck, where the dart bit into her just before she fell.

“It’s – just wait.”

It takes a few moments for Ilya to properly stand without feeling like she’s going to end up sprawled on the ground, but she follows the sound of the other woman’s voice (dutifully ignoring everything she’s saying) until her toe smacks into what must be her thigh.

Blandly, she makes an ow of pain, but there’s no feeling behind it.

“Right, reach down, inside my coat. Left side. There’s a pocket, and my lock-picking kit is rolled up in fabric.”

Unsure, Ilya crouches. Dim light filters through what looks to be an exit. For a hot second, Ilya stares longingly at the source of the light. If she gets up and runs, right now, she might even make it out.

“Don’t you think about that,” the woman warns, an edge of annoyance and antipathy to her tone, “you’ll be caught within twenty seconds. Better you leave it to me.”

Ilya huffs at the implication. “I’m not stupid.”

The woman only hums. It sounds awfully patronizing.

In response, Ilya smacks blindly at where she thinks her shoulder should be. She hits something, and the woman hisses, but with her hands stuck forcefully bound to the pillar, she’s kept from reacting.

She runs her fingers along the inside of the woman’s coat. True to her word, there’s a pocket sewn in, and Ilya produces a lumpy, rolled up piece of fabric from it. It’s heavier than she had expected, and she deposits it on the woman’s lap.

“I’d like to make it clear,” Ilya makes her voice as menacing as she can manage, in the dark and scared half shitless, “that you’re the only reason we’re in this situation. I’ve never woken up bound and in captivity before.”

The woman does not respond.

“Who are you, anyway?”

“Look inside the kit,” she says, ignoring Ilya’s question entirely, “and find the one that’s sort of squiggly at the end.”

“Oh, no, you don’t. I want a name before I do anything for you. Especially after you shot me.”

“Aleine,” she snaps out irritably, “now can you please find the pick.”

“Aleine,” Ilya muses, turning it over in her mouth. It sounds foreign, but she supposes that it matches with her accent. In regards to the picks, she says, “I don’t know. They all look the same.”

A scandalized gasp. “These are Invicta, crafted out of steel. Don’t offend me.”

Ilya pinches one of them between her forefinger and her thumb, like it would hurt to come into contact with it. “Will this work?”

Aleine expels a breath. It sounds like a hissing sort of rasp. “Fine. Go around to the back,” she instructs, “and there’ll be a keyhole. Shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

Ilya feels for the divot on the smooth metal cuffs, and upon Aleine’s direction, maneuvers the pick in. A sharp click accompanies a sudden relief on the pressure of the cuffs, and Aleine’s wrists pull apart immediately. Ilya hears her sigh.

“Finally,” she says, and pushes herself to a standing position. She holds her hand out expectantly.

“The pick?” Aleine prompts, and Ilya startles and all but throws the piece of metal at her.

Aleine hisses. “Careful. Please.”

The word has never sounded so insincere.

Aleine tucks the pick and its set back into her coat, and adjusts it tightly around herself. She peers at Ilya through the musky dark, the only light sparse and unforgiving, and takes a deep breath.

“First, we get out of here. We must be downtown, perhaps the basement of a worksmith. Locksmith? Oh, that’s so ironic.”

“How can you tell that?”

She waves at the ceiling. “Metal columns. Dusty tables. Fairly simple.”

Ilya makes a face. Aleine doesn’t see it. “If it weren’t for you, I’d still be at home, out of trouble. If I die getting out of here, it’s on your conscience.”

Aleine scoffs. She’s already meandering to the small stairway leading upstairs, peering up it. “You don’t know the kinds of things I can get out of. You’ll live.”

“Right,” Ilya pushes as much skepticism into her tone as she can manage, “but your skills are why I woke up with a bruise on my neck and rope around my arms.”

“Shut up, will you,” Aleine snaps, “if you keep talking, we’ll never get out.”

Slowly, Aleine makes her way nimbly up the stairs. She makes no sound going up, and doesn’t bother gesturing behind her for Ilya to follow, but damn if she’s going to be left alone, so she follows anyway.

The door at the top is slightly ajar. Voices drift past it. Ilya freezes as soon as she hears them.

Aleine holds a finger to her lips, and pushes the door just so, and it swings open a few more inches without a creak.

The voices get a little louder. Their accent is slurred and foreign, difficult enough to understand without the way they trample all over each other’s words, and Ilya abandons trying to understand their conversation.

Aleine sticks herself to the wall. The stairwell opens up to a narrow hallway, illuminated by the dull glow of electric lamps that look as if they’ve not been maintained in years.

The voices falter.

The horrifying sound of a pistol’s safety being clicked off is followed by footsteps. They get closer. And closer. There’s a burly shadow looming into the hallway.

Aleine, for her part, does not look panicked. Ilya is definitely panicking.

Suddenly, there’s a vice grip around her forearm, raw where the rope had bound it, but she’s being tugged roughly to the side. Ilya follows it.

Aleine drags her until Ilya gets her feet moving, and all caution to the wind, they charge for the door at the end of the short hall, illuminated considerably more than the rest of the room.

The footsteps are thudding closer. “Hey!”

“Come on,” Aleine urges, and yanks the door open. Ilya spares a terrified look back, at the man who’s just appeared at the end of the turn. Yes, that’s definitely a pistol wrapped in his hand. He’s dressed in a familiar shade of red.

Before he can aim his weapon, Aleine pulls Ilya through and slams the door shut.

Immediately, Ilya throws up an arm to shield her poor eyes from the sunlight drilling down onto the Reinsculd streets, and Aleine still doesn’t let go of her arm, instead forcefully guiding them to a narrow alley beside the building.

They hear the door burst open, and it feels like the construction shakes with the force of it, but it probably doesn’t.

A loud curse follows the sound. The sound of a boot angrily scuffed against the dirt.

The door closes again.

Aleine turns to face Ilya. She looks calm, far too calm for someone who just evaded a man who wielded a pistol like it was a loaf of bread.

She exhales. “Slight complication out of the way. That was not in my original plan.”

“Good,” Ilya interrupts, “because if it was, I’d be forced into thinking you’re dumber than you look – ”

“Excuse me, that’s highly offensive, and I was actually going to say that we’re on a bit of a tight schedule right now, so we should get going. Do you need anything from your home?”

“Offensive? Have I hurt your feelings? I’m sorry, it’s just that the dramatic half-cape and the tendency to shoot people in the neck really do add to the impression – ”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion. For the record, the half-cape is a useful technical decision. And,” she sniffs, haughty, “I don’t like shooting people. Didn’t have much of a choice left, though.”

Ilya twists her mouth into a sneer. Could have damn well left her alone, that was always a choice.

Aleine shifts her stance, so she doesn’t have her forearms pressed against Ilya’s shoulders any more, and instead she rocks back onto her heels, pushing her fingers into her belt.

“I’m asking you again. Do you need to take anything with you before we depart? It’ll be at least two weeks before you’re back.”

Two weeks. She doesn’t know if she’ll survive two weeks. But there’s nothing in that hut that would make it any easier. “No.”

“Suit yourself.” Aleine looks up at the sky, past the precarious balconies and roofing of the poorer part of the city. An aborted cough makes its way out of her throat. “I was hoping we would have departed by now, but I suppose the delay was inevitable. Come on.”

She whirls, half-cape rustling, and peeks out the alley. Satisfied, she steps out. Ilya doesn’t follow.

“Come on, then. We’ve already lost time.”

“Who was that?”

Aleine sighs. “What?”

“Who had us tied up in that basement? And who was the man with the gun? I don’t make enemies, at least not ones that know my face. It must have been because of you.”

“It was me. Is that what you want to hear?”

Ilya crosses her arms over her chest. She isn’t going to so much as move a centimetre before she gets answers out of this tight-lipped runaway.

Aleine clenches her jaw. “Freichel. I might have pissed him off a little a few days ago. Conveniently, he works with the authorities, and he makes a habit of scooping up the wanted list.”

“You’re – on the list? What did you do?” A damn criminal, that’s who Ilya’s going to be spending the next two weeks with, and this is not how she had wanted her life to go, she’s too young –

Aleine forces a laugh. “I’ve gotten used to it. The list isn’t what I’m usually worried about. Are you satisfied now?”

Ilya purses her lips.

Does she have a choice?

Silently, she follows Aleine back out onto the street, where Aleine pushes her into the milling crowds.

They’re quite near to the docks; the arching wooden beams and crumbling white paint are clearly visible.

“Transport’s been arranged already.” They come to a halt in front of a tired-looking barge, chipping paint and creaking over the surface of the water.

With a flourish, Aleine gestures at the boat. “Please. After you.”

~

A boy, all gangly limbs and only slightly taller than Ilya, introduces himself as Sasha. He claims he’s sixteen years of age, but childhood’s softness chases his features and clings, so Ilya doesn’t believe it for a moment.

He says his cousin is asleep, because they need someone to take the night shift while they’re traveling and so his cousin sleeps in the afternoon to stay awake all night.

The boat sets off sometime after two o’clock, and Ilya stations herself at the rear of the barge, watching Reinsculd grow smaller and smaller.

Aleine leans on a wooden crate by Ilya’s perch, arms crossed tightly over her chest. “You don’t have to look so worried,” she says, and Ilya pretends not to hear it, but Aleine plows on anyway, “I don’t expect to run into much trouble. Border patrol will be the only obstacle, but I’m sure you can handle them.”

Ilya huffs. “You’re assuming you know what I can or can’t do.”

Aleine hitches up an eyebrow. “I’m slightly familiar with the abilities of sirens.”

“Full-blooded sirens. Or did you forget to do your research before you kidnapped me?”

“I don’t see how it’s relevant.”

“It’s relevant. The extent of my abilities is what you saw on that cliff. Nothing more.”

Aleine frowns. “What exactly would you call that, then?”

“Sometimes,” Ilya says, haltingly, “I want the water to do something. And it does.” Hastily, she adds, “But it doesn’t always work. Unpredictable.”

“Right,” Aleine scoffs, “what about the voice?” She gestures at her throat, then at Ilya’s. “The singing.”

“I’ve never lured a sailor to his death, if that’s what you’re asking.” Honestly, it’s mildly offensive if that’s what Aleine is suggesting. “And if my mother was a siren, I never knew, so I couldn’t tell you if that’s a myth or not.”

Aleine is silent for a moment. “Oh.”

For what? Ilya cycles back through what she’s said, and – oh. She waves it away. “My aunt Lisa always said she ran because she couldn’t handle responsibility. To grow up with her would have been a disaster.”

“Still.” A pause. A rattling breath. “You live alone now?”

Ilya fixes her gaze strictly on the mass of land retreating into the horizon. “Not your business, is it?”

“Sorry,” Aleine amends, and it’s jarringly out-of-place to hear sincere apology from her mouth. Ilya makes her surprise known with a questioning look.

Aleine’s lips twist into a wry smile. “You don’t have to react like that. I’m capable of emotion.”

Ilya only hums in response.

“But you still don’t think you can do more than drown the occasional boat, as I understand it?”

“It seems you weren’t aware of my limited capabilities. Not so useful against border patrol anymore, hm? It’s not too late to turn around and head back to land. You can always put up an ad for another siren. I’m sure plenty will turn up.”

“Thank you for the suggestion,” Aleine drawls, “but don’t think I’m done with you yet. It’s just a shame that you’ve never discovered the rest of your abilities. I believe you can do more than you know.”

“Right.” Ilya shifts where she’s sitting atop the crate, letting her legs dangle off the edge. “Because now you’re an expert on sirens. Much appreciated.”

Aleine scuffs her boot on the wooden deck. “If you can’t hone your skills, we’ll all be dead when border patrol catches us. I’d suggest you get to work on them.”

She turns. Her receding footsteps make accompaniment to the splash of waves against the hull of the boat and Ilya’s heartbeat.

I’d like to see her try it, Ilya thinks.

~

(t.b.c.)

#fantasy #fiction

To love: an attachment, a bond, a connection;

The red thread around your ankle

The whisper of compelling, wanting, urging

A battle you fight because you know you must win the war

A wall you build to protect, adore, protect

To be loved: the elation, the solace, the trust;

A perpetual, resounding surety

The body that holds you, keeps you, warms you

The soul that lives in you to give company to your own

An ever-beating rhythm in never-ending cacophony

And to be in love: sun-storms and permafrost and a black hole all at once;

The deafening silence that rides on the coattails of catastrophe

Ashes and dust and the shield that makes you untouchable

The thunder of an ever-expanding universe, a centrifuge

That you see, you feel, you know, and so you move until you can't

(and even then you keep going).

She makes music with nothing but her smile.

It wraps around you like mist, like fog, so you can't see anything else,

and you are blind to the world,

but you can hear her music and that is enough.

On the days when she lets her starved fingers drift over bone-white and pitch-black keys,

and makes something beautiful,

you're captivated.

She can't step away from the instrument,

and you can't step away from the sound.

On the days when she takes her bruised fingers to the strings and sets the wood against her chin,

you're lost.

She spills to you everything she has never known the words for,

not in her language, and not in yours,

but something so sharply clear it is unmistakable.

But the days she opens her mouth and lets her choked voice sing,

those are the days you forget how to breathe,

the days you know nothing but the thrall of her song on your bones and blood.

She hates that even your eyes sing back to her, with crystal tears, with stinging wetness.

She kisses it away but she keeps singing and that is all you need, to hear her sing.

But on most days, her simplest song is that smile,

and you are happy with it.

Is it so bad that I am afraid?

Afraid to feel your warmth beneath my fingers,

because I think I might leave frost marks?

Afraid to rest my gaze on your beautiful eyes,

because I think you might see something ugly?

Afraid to string together the words that I know,

because I am terrified that you will hear (but won't listen)?

I am so full of fear.

(It courses through my blood like I could not live without it.)

I fear you.

What you were to me, that I lost myself in you.

What you could be, that I realize I wouldn't mind never finding myself.

And everything that you are right now;

something the romantics call "love", which is another fear unto itself

And most of all,

I am afraid of my own mind.

The part of me that believes,

wonders,

hopes.

Because I am so scared of how I want to follow it.

What am I not afraid of?

Your love.  And death.

Perhaps one and the same.

Last night, I dreamt of you

You, past a rosy haze that blurred out the color of your eyes

You, past a partition I couldn't see

You, reflecting my own pleas back at me

Last night, I dreamt of you

Your beautiful hands, like moonlight against a solid night

Your smooth voice, like the taste of sweet honey

Your soft lips, forming words in a language I have never understood

Sometimes, when I see you in my mind, I forget everything but you

Everything but your face and your body and your song, almost like spellcraft

Everything, because when I told you that you were everything I needed, you echoed it back

And those nights, I wake to my skin damp with tears and a plea caught in my throat

Sometimes, when I see you in my mind, I want to shout

I want to wrap my arms around your shoulders and press my lips to your ear to ask 

I want to hold you so that it never occurs to you to leave

And those nights, I wake to an ache in my lungs that I think they call heartbreak

So you see, last night, I dreamt of you

I dreamt that you stood with an arm out towards me,

Waiting,

But when I woke, it was to the sound of sparrows and not your song,

It was to the light of morning sun and not your smile,

It was to my empty room and not you

I want to wake up next to you again.