m e s s a l i n a
better the wind, the sea, the salt in your eyes,
than this, this, this.
than this, this, this.
She did not notice the way the regent looked at her when she leaned in to smooth back his hair. A part of her had never left the forest, and her terror was too freshly buried, the grave too freshly dug, for her to think of anything else.
(But, there was a moment when she leaned in and in and in, that she wished she could simply stay.)
Instead, Messalina held the candle aloft and pulled herself away. Out the door and down the hall and through the echoing courtyard she wove, Ipomoea fast on her heels. She glanced up only briefly when the guards joined them, though it was enough for one of them to recognize her and start to pull the other down with him into a bow. Before he could, however, she stopped him with a shake of her head.
"Forget your manners — it is alright. We must hurry to the mouth of the forest.” The men settled on an obliging nod.
The click of their hooves on the footpath resounded through the silent castle. Unsettled by the quiet, Messalina leaned towards Ipomoea and murmured, "There should be troops there already, waiting. I alerted the captain when I could not find Ulric — have I overstepped my authority, regent?” Her lips twisted into a weak, wry smile. A way to ease both their tensions, however poor of an attempt it had been.
A breeze sliced through the glade like a scythe just then, cutting into her very bones, and Messalina’s teeth chattered in her skull. She pressed closer towards the regent's steady form, and tried to think of warm things.
When he bumped his shoulder to hers, she glanced up at him, wide-eyed and inquisitive. “A part of me hopes this is a nightmare, even though I know it isn’t.”
She nodded as she puzzled over a suitable reply. He had put into words her own unspoken worries, of nightmares and — a shadow twitched in the looming distance, and her heart plummeted. Monsters. Nightmares and monsters.
The moment she realized it was nothing more than a cat, to avoid becoming jumpier than a rabbit, she poured all of her nerves into finding the words.
"I have read a few of the Denoctian fables, in my time here. They are very… creative. More creative, and haunting, than the ones my mother had told me.” Her breath puffed from her lips in little clouds as they started up the hill that led to the forest.
"What struck me the most about them, though, was how each fable ended with the monster vanquished. My mother’s stories had not. The monsters in her stories had lived forever and ever, carrying off children, ravaging towns. And though Denocte's monsters were more terrifying in nature, I found them to be much more favorable than my mother's.”
A sigh of relief blew past her lips when they crested the hill. Her eyes drank in the sight of soldiers stationed by the mouth of the forest.
“Only because, they were as mortal as we are,” she finished, thoughtfully. As mortal as we are.
@Ipomoea | "speaks" | notes: <3
