M E S S A L I N A . //
Memories flooded her mind like a roaring waterfall, and for a moment, Messalina could not escape the clutches of its frothing depths.
Her childhood was defined by solitude. As the sun rose and set, a small girl dipped in ivory and donned in lace would sit at the ledge of her cavernous window, blankly observing the golden disc trickle slowly across the skies; distant laughter from the children below would echo through her ears, yet she showed no sign of hearing it. Her eyes were fixed on the horizon. For every day when the sun dipped low, just before night’s ascension—every day, she would solemnly whisper her deepest wishes to the departing sun.
Messalina’s words to the boy of crimson and pearl had been delicately littered with small, white lies. Religion wasn’t merely insignificant; it had been outlawed in Algernon generations before her time—the holy books burned, the temples destroyed. She had known only the concept of it from the hushed sentences the nursemaids whispered to each other, when they thought she was not listening. Yet what was religion, if not a way to comfort the hearts of the hopeless and the sorrowed? The longing for a sympathetic higher power could not be beaten out of the kingdom’s people; and to little Messa, who remained firmly tethered at the side of the viperous Enchantress—she found her solace in the Sun and the Moon and the Stars.
Cerulean orbs blinked, as the weight of consciousness returned to her. It had been only a split second really, too short for him to notice; yet as her scorching eyes sought his, a flutter of anxiety danced in her stomach as his crimson gaze remained stubbornly set upon that dratted, moss-covered rock. Had she… upset him? Strangely, the thought of that disturbed the girl far more than she cared to admit.
But then his vibrant eyes met hers, finally, and all was well again.
After all, he and his siblings give us the sun, and the sun gives us the trees and the grass and the flowers and all other things beautiful in nature. I thought that was something to be thankful for, to show them that I’m thankful for it. His melodic words could paint the sky gold, if he wished. She found herself stepping closer as he grew bolder, and when the boy held her gaze this time—unwavering in its intensity—then it was her turn to avert a burning gaze to the exasperated stone.
Do you speak for Oriens? I’ve never met someone, other than a priest, who thought to understand the feelings of the gods.
She turned to him then, thoughts tense yet somewhat relieved as his weighty question gave her the mental probe she’d needed to regain some composure. Ivory braids rustled as she gingerly shook her head.
Moving with dancer’s steps across the moss-carpeted floor, she drew out the sparkling bottle of aged mead the old sage had given her that morning. And along the rim, she tied a blue satin butterfly she’d embroidered with gold thread the night before. Her skills were not as polished as she would like, but it cast a sapphire reflection across the stone-carved altar. It also complimented the poppies wondrously well, as she set her offerings close to his.
Lowering herself into the position she’d found him in, snowy eyelashes rested upon her cheeks as she sent a prayer to the God of Dawn. Her first one. As she rose, she felt the vast distance that stretched like an ocean between herself and the starlight boy painfully well.
She did not know why she was telling him so much. Why she was revealing bits and pieces of herself, when she never did so even for Mother. All her life, Messalina had locked her heart away behind a gilded cage. Yet now, it strained against its bonds, and soon, she was afraid the bars would break. The thought terrified her—and so the girl of satin and roses wrapped golden chains around that cage, and shuddered as they locked in place.
For the truth was a monster she did not wish him to see.
@Ipomoea
notes: this is long ;o; po's got her flustered!
