Cruel Melody (Honour)

[Lady Knives]

The shuffling of material is heard, and a few soft, muffled groans emanate from beneath five separate hoods. Rough, brown cloth woven by the filth upon which it sat scraped against dried and cracking skin, causing the patches of dried blood to crackle and flake off. Humans; Sinful, dirty creatures. Delicate, replaceable bodies, and like so many others, so easy to manipulate. A dark, hooded figure paced about the chairs, which were lined up side by side. The pale, slender hand of the figure drug smoothly across the wood of the chairs, the soft noise yielding no comfort to the cold, bleeding bodies bound to the chairs. Dark. The room was dark, the bodies lit only by the moonlight which kissed their throbbing bodies each time the wind moved the cloths adorning the window frames.

“Fadatues sesti a muamos…” (Translation: “Fading sparks of memories”) A soft, sultry voice whispered, rousing the hooded mortals from their bloodied haze. The language which the figure spoke was serpentine, a hiss gracing the dangerous lips from which the words of longing passed.

A snap was heard, and the blaze of a single strand of flame lit the figure’s face. This was a face familiar to the bearer, but foreign eyes. These were the eyes of an Ancient Abyssal wife, a woman who slaughtered her husband, and ruled by means of sadism and madness. She was the epitome of darkness, and her name was forgotten, but a deed such as hers lived on forever, thriving in the minds of each ruler that sat in the throne of Solaris.

Another snap and spheres of fire lit the room. The icy breeze of mother winter no longer caressed their skin, nor the sweet moonlight of Nyx. The bodies bound in the midst of this demon were the bodies of Holy men, cut and infected. Blood curdled and rotted in the many gashes across their bodies, and each hopeless breath they gasped for felt as though they were swallowing shards of diamond. One by one, she walked behind the chairs, snagging the bags off of their heads, one by one. In the way she had them positioned, it was the Pope in the middle, and his cardinals and priests at his sides. The wicked soul watched their eyelids twitch, eyes flicking back and forth in their sockets as if frantically staring into oblivion, searching for a way out. She rounded the last chair and came to stand before the Pope; David IV was his name. He had been born and raised in the church, and was a well-known, “charitable,” and loved man.

There were dirty secrets pushed to the depths of this man, who was held beneath a body of denial as if it was the pool of sewer water that he blessed himself with on a daily basis. Really? He was a holy man? Killing the innocent and taking everything from them simply because they didn’t scrape enough money to pay taxes? Oh, so very holy indeed. A Pope is supposed to be the embodiment of light, yes? Surely the “Holier than thou” attitude radiated plenty of intimidation, and surely it has gotten him everything he had ever wanted.

“Yes, you put the fear of God into them, don’t you, David?” She hissed, taking the secondary language and putting it into play. The words were laced with omniscience, as well as the heavy, snake-ish accent which hung off her words like so many venomous serpents.

David’s eyes fluttered open slowly, pain and the fear of God shining in his eyes. He dared not gaze at his brethren, for the sight of them would surely scar him. In fact, he did not even want to see himself at this moment in time, for he could feel the chunks skin missing from his body. His blood was thin, and each breath was shallow, as if an anvil had been placed upon his chest.

“How do those apprentice boys taste, David?” He cringed as she spoke. This woman was drawing the filthy acts out in front of his colleagues, making the situation all the more painful. “I might go have a taste of them, later.” Running her tongue across her pale lips, she caught the older man’s eyes with her intense stare. “Or perhaps I will put an end to their suffering, by taking your life-Or…even better…how about I let them do it?” She had discovered his sin, and of course, he believed this was the wrath of his God, but she was just the Hell that he had made around him.

“Hn.” She cooed softly, arching as she moved closer to the aged man and straddled the arms of the chair, allowing her face to come within inches of his own. The alluring aroma of honey and lemongrass was the only beauty trapped in this room, but came from the demoness which mounted his chair. “I want to tell you a secret, David…” The woman purred, leaning up close to his ear as she whispered, “We have forgotten the taste of the air we breathe, because too often we take this life of ours for granted.” The holy man could only shudder at her closeness, his tear ducts cut and dry, too shriveled to release a single tear. “If your God is truly who your silly books proclaim him to be, how is it he allows creatures such as myself to roam this universe?” A charming smile graced her lips as she spoke, her eyes alight with vicious joy, “Be proud that you are to be killed by that which cannot die.”

“You have been degraded and stripped down to what you truly are, a worthless compilation of blood, shit, and water; and you will ascend to nothing, for there is nothing after you die but silence, and oblivion.” After she finished speaking, she drew away from his ear, sliding from the chair’s arms. She then walked calmly to the left of the bewildered and sobbing Pope, where his Cardinals, the highest of high, and his partners in crime in the act of deflowering the helpless little apprentice boys of the Church sat, bound to death, but rejecting his friendship.

“Fearing death is worse than dying one hundred times, Lawrence.” She addressed the first Cardinal to the Pope’s left, whose eyes had been dug out by the demonic woman in her day-old escapades. The second Cardinal’s tongue was missing and his mouth and below were a bloody mess. Constant twitching plagued the man’s face, and the nub of flesh left in his mouth jerked like the freshly severed tail of a lizard. He bled, whimpering and murmuring like a tongueless man should. Periodically he sputtered out blood, which dripped down his chin and onto his chest. The two Cardinals had both been castrated, but the type of castration done by claws, not by surgical instruments, and not just removing of the testicles, but the genetalia altogether. They had all been sliced and gashed in numerous places across their bodies, and left to infection and the hungry maggots to nibble at the rotting flesh. While the horrid stench was unpleasant to the demonic woman who was carrying out this deed, that was the last thing she needed to worry about.

The Deacons to the Pope’s left had been made deaf, either by the Armegedon which infiltrated their ear-canal and burned it out, or simply by ripping off the ears and clawing through the sides of their heads. They had no idea of their superior’s actions, and she found that they did not deserve to be so heartbroken. Their deaths would be quick, and almost painless. The woman’s eyes closed as she drew a hand softly across each of their necks, bringing them back toward each other with a sickening rip. Following the rip were gurgling and sputtering noises, and blood slithered down the cherry wood of the chairs and pooled graciously onto the wooden planks which made up the floor. Some of the crimson life fluid slipped through the cracks, and more of it was sucked up by the dehydrated and neatly butchered pieces of wood. They bled until they could bleed no more, and until the blood that was left inside of them deoxygenated and their bodies forgot how to live. “Reap them of your sins, and wash away the filth that lingers…” She hissed silently.

She moved back to the Cardinals, watching the mute man spit up and go into fits of incoherent mumbles and murmurings. The blind man was whispering his Hail Maries, watching the gruesome scene through what senses he had left. Of course he heard the sputtering, airy noises of the two Deacons being bled, but he knew that worse was in store for him.

“Father, would you be so kind and give you and your comrades Viaticum (“Last Rites”)?” Her voice had become softer, but still dripped with that viciousness which this soul would surely not let pass.

“There’s nothing here to take for granted with each breath that we take. The hands of times’ diffused from our bodies, and we fade. Memories remain, as time goes on. There’s nothing here to take for granted with each breath that we take. The hands of times’ diffused from our bodies, and we fade. Memories remain, as time goes on.”

The soft, angelic singing of the voices of five little boys rang throughout the small room, causing both the Pope and Cardinals’ breathing to quicken. As the voices became closer, the Pope began to speak, a voice stuttery and soft:

“Into Your hands, Oh Lord, I commend my spirit. Oh Lord Jesus Christ, receive my spirit. Holy Mary, pray for me. Oh Mary, mother of grace, mother of mercy, protect me from the enemy, and receive me at the hour of death. St. Joseph, pray for me. St. Joseph, in company with the Blessed Virgin, Your spouse: Open to me the source of divine mercy.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, we give you our hearts and our souls.” The first Cardinal to the left murmured.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, assist us in our last agony.” The Cardinal spoke for his brother, tears unable to bring their cool wetness to his cheeks.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, may we sleep and rest in peace in your holy company.” The Pope mumbled.

Lawrence: “Lord, have mercy on us.”

David: “Christ, have mercy on us.”

Lawrence: “Lord, have mercy on us. Our Father...”

David: “And lead us not into temptation.”

Lawrence: “But deliver us from evil.”

David: “Eternal rest grant unto us Oh Lord,
And let perpetual light shine upon us.”

Lawrence: “From the gates of hell.”

David: “Deliver our souls, Oh Lord.
“May we rest in peace.”

Five small boys entered the room, dressed in their traditional robes for Mass, still softly singing. The song had become more haunting, their voices softening as they came closer. A calm smile graced the young woman’s lips as they came to rest at her sides, hugging at her legs and hips as if for solace of some sort, much like a son would hug their mother in adoration. Their eyes had been closed the whole time they had walked, and as the last word passed their supple, childish lips, their eyes snapped open. The surface was light-blue, glowing demonically as their perfect faces remained placid.

“Amen.” She whispered, watching as the boys ran toward the holy men like tots on Christmas morning.

Screams filled the air, blood splattering upon the four walls of the room, and pooling on the floor like so much water. Clawing, ripping, snapping, growling. The demonic woman smiled, unable to see anything more than red, and breathe in the fresh scent of innards which was filling the room.

Outside these walls and miles through the forest into the town of Glühwein Wood, people were celebrating the Winter Festival of Yule. People were oblivious to the utterly barbaric and inhumane acts being carried out outside of their Village walls. People were dancing in the streets, their festive mugs filled with fine golden rum and other less sophisticated drinks to not only celebrate Winter, but to bring in the New Year. Crowds of singing people littered the streets, some too drunk to walk straight, and others passed out in a drunken haze in the middle of the road. A large Yule log was placed in the Village’s center, blazing and warming the ignorant hearts which danced in its wake. Holly was thick in the air, the smell of Fir and Spruce enough to burn your nostrils when walking through the Town Square. What a better time for murdering when the people who coveted and lied to their Pope were indulging in their own special Sin.

Adultery with a spice of lying and stealing and cheating? Delicious! Lust, Sloth, Gluttony, Pride, Wrath, Greed, Envy, and many more! Come! Join the human race! There’s plenty Sin to go around!

[Silver]

Blindness in terror. The cold sweat, the fractured mind, the dark presence over the shoulder as it tells lies and whispers in the ear. The wordless gibberish, the insanely rolling phrases that meant nothing to anyone but he who mutters them. A scream, wordless and lost in the silence of noise.

A still, cold man shivered violently in the snow, his cloak pulled about him and cinched at his neck as if it were his noose and his armor. His eyes scan the crowd, watch every hand and every body and every face, catching every movement and gesture and hanging on each as individual pieces of a great and fearful whole. The horde around him stamped, pressed, crowded him from every direction and every angle. His hands moved without a will behind them, his body trembled.

He took a breath, shouted. A few turned to look at him, disdain on their features. He interrupted their joy. They moved on their way, ignoring him as they had before.

A soldier looked. The man gazed into his eyes for a moment, gray clouds against blue mist, and in a moment there was recognition. Both moved. One ran away, pushing through the crowd to stumble and trip and attempt the impossible: move without touching these people, these humans, these creatures with whom he felt no kinship. The herd rejected him. He rejected the herd. The soldier, the dog, saw an exile, a wolf among his sheep. He moved to intercept, moving through the crowd and playing it as a master puppeteer plays the performance of his life. The two moved quickly, one in fear and one in anger.

The man turned a corner, his cloak billowing behind him suddenly, then slipping along behind him. The sounds of his feet disappeared among the masses. The soldier followed, his armor clanking softly against his weapon. His eyes scanned the darkness of the street. It was a den of thieves and prostitutes, murderers and rapists. The only decent place along this road was the church. He turned away, back to the crowd.

As the footsteps of the soldier receded and vanished, neglecting this street and its denizens, the wolf among the sheep stood out from the doorway, the wash of his fear passing over him. He braced himself against the wall and bent at the waist, breathing between his knees and rocking back and forth to calm the churning in his stomach. He waited until his breath had stilled. His eyes remained tightly shut, his mind skittering across the plane of insanity with reckless abandon. An arm brushed against it, forcing him to count to five hundred. Eyes began to follow him. Laughter echoed at his expense, but only briefly.

With a rustle of hard cloth, he rose, his eyes closed, and stepped out into the flow of the crowd. He remained still, quiet, following the movements and focusing only on the chill of his own sweat, the dry feel of the skin on his hands, the trembling of the muscles in his back. When he could take it no longer, he pushed out of the crowd and opened his eyes onto the darkness of a doorway. The door was closed, tightly locked, and no amount of desperate fumbling would budge it from its firm place in the wall. His shoulder pressed against it and he slid to the ground, his eyes wide and terrified. He recited words that had never existed and hummed marching tunes.

Once again he rose, his eyes wide with terror this time, and took in his surroundings as the bile rose in his throat. A cross, a steeple, the church. Across the road, just across the road, he would find peace and safety. No human would be in a church on this pagan night. He stepped into the crowd, trembled, and made his way forward. The clutch of a hand at his side forced him forward, he turned, kept turning, and moved through the crowd haphazardly. Voices cursed him, but his eyes and mind were riveted on the door to the church. His hands touched the wood, and he pushed. It would not open.

He pounded once, twice. It eased open, and inside he saw nothing but darkness. There were noises in the dark, but he dared not stay in the crowd. He stepped inside, his nerves frayed and anxious, and closed the passage behind him.

[Lady Knives]

BOOM!...BOOM! Down slammed the backs of the chairs, the splat of broken and child infested bodies sounding as they hit the wooden floor. The screaming had ceased, but the sound of her demonic toddlers ripping, clawing, and gnawing at the skin of the men emanated sweetly from them. Soft, pleased coos escaped some of the children's wickedly carved mouths, their eyes coming to rest upon their "Mother" with inherent affection. Knives gazed back in silence, kneeling down to catch them as they ran to her. She ran her fingers through their sticky, crimson-blotted hair, whispering words of praise into their small ears. They all giggled at once, sounding off like so many imps as they came in closer, kissing her on the cheek and skipping back a few steps. They then turned, looking over the hopeless corpses with pride and satisfaction gleaming in their pale, glowing eyes.

Knives' body arched as she leaned back against a nearby wall, her chin raised at the bloody scenery about her. A small smirk turned up the sides of her pale lips, her eyes closing as she spoke softly to the children, "I'm not sure what to do with you, children."

As she spoke they all turned to look at her, tilting their heads to the side as if they were some sort of domesticated dogs, who were unable to understand the babbling of their master. As she opened her mouth to speak again, they took a few steps closer and hugged at her legs, unable to comprehend exactly what she meant. With a calm smile she grabbed them closer, cutting off their flow of oxygen for at least a minute. They began to struggle, but as they did she tightened her grip; multiple cracks sounded, and following, the soft sounds of their bodies sliding to the floor.

Her eyes flashed as she heard pounding on the door, which was down a hallway behind her. It seems whoever had wandered upon this place had gotten the door to budge open, and had closed it behind them. Before the door had closed, Knives had seen the slim silhouette of the person, coming to the conclusion that it was a male. 'Who would possibly have wandered away from the festivities back in the town? Perhaps it is a drunk.' She mused, taking a few silent, calculated steps backward into the darkest part of the room. There was no light, and he would be sure to notice the stench of death as soon as it registered in his mind. Yes. It was a human. Male. He was drenched in adrenaline and sweat, and in his aura she could sense that he was unstable. The thoughts were racing so fast through his mind that she did not even bother to peek into his primitive brain. Knives was surprised that this man could even function properly, and studied him closely through the darkness. He fell silent, his breathing more shallow than that of a dying mouse as his complexion became pallid. She could hardly contain herself, this sight was all too comical, and she had the perfect opportunity to made a mortal soil themselves, if not literally.

The posessed body of the woman jerked, a harsh exhale of breath escaping her mouth as she clenched her fists at the walls. Her claws dug deep into the splintering walls, and obsidian oozed out from beneath her fingernails as she squirmed. She withheld a scream of anger, fighting back with an all-too-familiar entity: The real Knives. A hissed chain of foreign words whispered their way passed her lips, her body tensing as her eyes flashed viciously in the darkness multiple times.

There was a dull flash of light further down the hallway, and he heard whispering. The muscles in Solomon's neck twitched as he pushed himself closer to the large door behind him, the demonic whisperings amplifying themselves inside of his head and causing the small hairs across his body to stand on edge. He began to repeat the whisperings over and over, the sharp accent and serpentine pronounciation of words rolling numbly over his tongue as his eyes began to dart around in the accumulation of thick darkness. His heart pounded inside of his chest, and the adrenaline began to race through his system.

After slamming her fists against the wall a few times, the demonic woman gave up on being silent, knowing that the man would discover her sooner or later. She let out a banshee-like scream, the voices behind the scream doubling: one monstrous, and one filled with passionate loathing. Her body slammed into the wall before her, and then flew backward in an attempt to subdue the current lesser soul with pain. Success was granted, and the screaming soul within was quieted once again, locked once more into the back of the vicious deity's mind. Knives heard the whisperings of the human, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. She began to wonder if the unstable aura she had sensed meant that he was not just afraid, but on the brink of losing himself. In silence, she caught her breath, taking in deep inhales through her nose, and releasing them heavily through her mouth. After resting for a few moments the woman pushed off from the wall. Her pale-vanilla skin faded into darkness as she flitted, transporting with ease before the man, awating a shriek of some sort in reaction to her sudden appearance. The expression upon her face was calm, but held a stone-cold graveness which could send a chill deep into the bones, and even make the dead writhe six feet under ground.

[Silver]

An indistinct expression of mixed acknowledgment and lack of caring passed across his features, creating for one instant the symbolism that he was aware of her, aware of the place that they were in, aware of anything. The expression passed and he stepped away from her, his eyes surveying the darkness with the incalculable weight of blankness flowing like a tremor from his shoulders. If he noticed anything about the smell that lingered in the same air he breathed, or if he sensed the deep evil so close to him, it was impossible to find a solitary shred or singular ounce of any evidence, great or small, to that noticing or that sensing. For all intents and purposes, the man may as well have been a flow of concrete.

The darkness of the room and the perception of his eyes gradually merged, allowing his glacier blue eyes to see into shadows and grasp the movements within their lackluster atmosphere. Shade and shadow lingered on every surface, dimness clogging the sensation of sight as he surveyed his surroundings in a purely reflexive perusal—there was no life in it, not focus, merely the cold memorization of a place, almost as if he were taking a mental photograph of the place. He gave not a moment of extra time to the examination of the corpses, passing over them with neither restraint nor reaction. They were quite simply a feature of the environment, as with the dark stone walls or the unlit torches in their high sconces. The sounds and smells of the place—echoing and rank—were mere augmentations to his examination.

Moments passed, the sounds of his boots echoing against the walls and being oppressed by a darkness and silence so complete that the two fought over the right to devour the sounds of his passing in their entirety. Still he gave no notice to these things, nor the corpses, until his boot stepped onto the disembodied hand of a person. Squelch. He halted, lifting his foot again and setting it back down by the other before he reacted fully: he knelt, bringing his face and eyes close to the offending hand. He sniffed twice, then stood and stepped over it.

Pews had once lined the chapel, but now they were torn asunder. Though the stained glass windows rose high on the ceilings, it was clear that no light would pass through them ... the new moon had reduced the night out-of-doors to pitch black, and indoors it was merely the dim reflection of leftover light that allowed any sight. The man halted in the center of the large church sanctuary. His perusal had finished, and he directed his attention back to the woman.

As with the room, so not with the woman. A change came over his expression when he looked upon her, one of vague discomfort and a long-held hurt. The look that comes to those who live long lives full of strife and pain, the look of one who has allowed a small wound time to fester and become infected, the look to which people subscribe when there is no comfort to ease the suffering of their calamities—this was his look. The expression, unlike the first, never left the face of the man. It held true as his eyes scanned her, no longer unfocused as before but rather pained and vaguely sad. One of his hands moved, fingers loose but held forward from his palms, and extended towards her face.

The two of them touched. Ever so softly, ever so gently, he pressed his index and middle fingers against the pale skin of her cheek, feeling the coolness of her and understanding in a quiet moment that she was, in all probability, as dead as the people on the floor. Those memories had come to him, of course—he had seen them just as clearly as any investigator would have—and he felt the dim nausea of a man accustomed to all kinds of death but distinctly disapproving of any of those kinds. He took his hand back slowly, clenching and unclenching his fist as the sensation of life flowed back into him. It had been so long.

"You."

He had no need to glance around the room, but indicated the corpses with a vague wave of his hand.

"Why?"

It was a simple enough question. Though his voice was husky, gravelly and hard from disuse, it was clear and had substantial tone to it, as with a man who has been parched for days at a time and just been given his first sip of water, then asked to speak. Full capability of speech was with him, but his pained expression was not in his tone. The clearness that he was unfazed by her or her deeds would most likely set in quickly, as would the understanding that even the adrenaline he could feel in his body would do no harm or good to him. Not a muscle or tendon on his body moved; still as the dead, one could say.

"What did they do to you?"

[Lady Knives]

His lack of reaction was just enough time for a durastic change to take place. The demented soul fought for control once more, but was losing gradually. It had nothing to hold onto now, and now that there was someone in the room there was a distraction. Solomon held her attention just long enough for the natural inhabitor to break through and take partial consciousness. She could feel that he had discovered her mess, though the reaction to even that was hardly one at all; it was just the thoughts that had begun to flow, and the energy, and life that was drifting through his veins. Knives shuddered, her eyes were wide open and blank, washed over black, and dull.

Before he rounded her once more, and came within quite close proximity, the young woman took only a step back. She was unstable now, and anxiety, fear, and uneasiness had taken control of her. This neutral state was one she didn't enter that often, for people were not around her when this struggle for consciousness took place. Both voices screamed a battle inside of her head, one in the ancient language which Knives had begun to understand, and common speak around most parts of the human realms. Her eyes flashed, the layer on the surface regaining its menacing glow, and liquid-reflection of the pale light which snuck through the cracks of the door. She could hear nothing but muffled coos, and see nothing but Solomon in the thick darkness which consumed the room.

There was warmth, and a foreign touch that did not belong to her. His slender, worn fingertips had brushed across her cheek, and detected the lack of warmth upon her skin. She froze. A chill ran down her spine, causing her body to tremble for a few moments before falling still. Her eyes closed, opening moments later crystal clear, unoxygenated blood-red. They were no longer washed over black, and no longer menacing. The look in her eyes was soft, as if she did not understand what was going on. Lost. The next words that he spoke were lost, and were nothing but murmurings, quite similar to the false whispers one would hear in the wind. Beyond the mutilation and murderings this young woman had just commited, she looked more fragile than a porcelain doll. Her pale skin contrasted greatly with the intense darkness, and the ebony hair framing her face caused her to look much like a ghost.

Instinct kicked in, and as soon as their eyes met she shoved him aside and bounded for the door. Her breathing had become quick and shallow, and her eyes wide with fear. She was much like a young fawn in this moment, whipping about to try and escape a fate which she did not know would blossom into something more than just being caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

[Silver]

"Wait!"

Solomon lurched forward, his body responding instinctively to the fleeing vampire, to the sense of fear she gave off. His hand reached out, fingers circling her wrist just as the last sound passed his lips, and he closed his fingers tightly around it. They stood like that for only a tiny point in time, but it was enough for him to feel the lack of heartbeat, the absence of warmth, the cool skin beneath his fingertips. He closed his entire hand around her wrist, uncaring as to whether she was a murderer or what species she was. Whatever was inside him sensed the prey in her, pounced on it, and he was loathe to let go.

The muscles of his hands pulled against her. No weak man, even in the realm of the supernatural, he felt her feet leave the ground briefly and skid across the dirty stone before she finally moved back towards him. Caught in mid-flight as she was, he doubted it would be safe to simply hold her by one wrist or even by both. If he knew the acts of cornered animals, as this girl seemed to be at that moment, she would just as easily lash out at him as she would try to escape him another time. He took the only alternative he could think of at that moment.

He held her. Not the romantic, caring type that two lovers take part in or the soft, gentle type that a mother uses to calm her child—he held her as he would a friend. He pressed her against his chest, pinning her arms with one of his, and simply let her know that he was there ... and that she would not be leaving. He held her for a few moments before he came to realize just how long it had been since he held a woman, or touched a woman, or even been near a woman. The inappropriateness of holding her sank in just after that, but he found himself torn between letting her go and risking another attempt to flee or holding her and risking an uncomfortable situation.

"Your name...," she whispered, her voice cutting into his thoughts.

Confused, he looked down at the top of her head. She seemed frozen, almost unwilling to believe that she was near him, and he felt a twinge of guilt. He had probably frightened her. Women seemed to be easily frightened by him, at least in his most recent experiences. He had great difficulty dredging up memories more than a few days old, but in the memories he could still touch and replay in his mind, women seemed to avoid him from afar.

"...is Solomon."

[Lady Knives]

In a meager attempt to both calm herself and regain her composture, she leaned briskly forward in his arms. Her eyes were still closed, her shapely eyebrows furrowed in both confusion and anxiety. She did not know where she was, all she knew was that she had lost control yet again, and the results were more than horrific. After she strained and failed to gaze back at him, she sank into him, but did not dare to let her guard down. The heat from his body was intoxicating, flowing in waves against her skin and lulling her into a drowsy state of consciousness. Her cheeks flushed in embaressment as her mind was more focused on his intimacy than not being able to move. she became slightly irritated, her wrists writhing and harshly rubbing against one another under his arms, and she bit her lip to keep from damning him to hell. The awkwardnes in the arm silence caused her to squirm more, no words fluttering from the depths of her mind. Knives was lost in her own abyss of silence, her eyes focusing on the ceiling, and the m any splintering boards which composed it.

She felt his body shift beneath hers, and her bottom dip into his pelvic area. This caused her muscles to tighten, her knees bending and twisting as she struggled in silence and allowed a few soft breaths of stain to pass her lips. After a few moments of anxious squirming, all movement ceased. For now, she would give up, and wait for the right time to make her move. Deep in the silence she began to ponder.

'Why did he stop me?'

'Where did he come from?

'Who is he?'

'Does he know who I am?'

[Silver]

It caught him on the exhale. Breath lashed against his teeth as his jaw ground down, a rasp of hot air rushing into his mouth, and he found his grip on her grow stronger as his body involuntarily pulled hers closer. The sharp intake of air bubbled down his throat, a peculiar sensation, and he soon found himself gasping out a pair of short breaths almost identical to the first, on a smaller scale. It was ridiculous. His heartbeat sped up, his muscles tightened, even his thoughts seemed to pass away for a moment or two as he tried to get a grip on his self-control. The knowledge that he had her under control, at least physically, faded abruptly and he found himself wondering, in an all-too-familiar way, where he was and what he was doing.

Something in him made the clarification that it had nothing to do with what had happened to him before.

He looked down at the woman in his arms, shifted, and became suddenly very, very aware of where her body touched his. The awareness made him uncomfortable. The reaction his body took to that awareness was entirely different, and he felt suddenly embarrassed as almost every part of his body stiffened. The more gender-conscious parts of his anatomy were at the forefront of that stiffening process. It was embarrassing. He had no idea why it was embarrassing, but he could feel his face flush scarlet with the knowledge of what had just happened.

[Lady Knives]

The comfortable warmth radiating from his body suddenly burst into something nearly searing hot, which caused her to jump and shudder as she remained in his arms. Her eyes opened a bit wider as she felt him tense up beneath her, his grip tightening and making it harder to breathe. The breaths that were taken in were shallow and slow, and she began to struggle a bit more as his grip tightened even further. A stiff sensation brushed against her behind, causing her to growl softly, and deeply inside of her throat. As soon as she made the realization as to what it was, she began to struggle, swearing and cursing him with every word booming from her lips. Regardless of her constant, feverish bucking, his grip remained a viceroy, like the jaw of a Tasmanian devil latching onto its prey. Her body shook, her eyes closing as she continued the attempt to free herself.

It seemed to no avail, and the bewildered man holding her as though he was dying indeed felt as though he was dying. His energy was quickly being drained, for he was only stronger than the average human. She hissed and spat, her legs kicking against his and aiming for his head and shoulders. With one lucky shot she twisted her body, her boot making straight contact with his jaw. This forced him to release her, and as soon as she slipped from his grasp, she bolted forward, only to be hooked by both of her thighs and drug back with her claws drawn. She slammed back against Solomon, and felt his legs wrap around and trap hers, and his arms pin hers across her chest. She listened to the quickness of his breathing, and came to the conclusion that since her attempt to escape had just failed, that she had no other choice but to give up.

Knives squirmed to try and shift her body to a more comfortable position, but could not, and became intently set on wiggling herself until her body slid a few milimeters and she was able to relax. "Why...?"

[Silver]

Solomon took three long, deep breaths when her tantrum subsided. The back of his head hurt, stars danced in his eyes, and every time she took in a breath he could feel it up his spine. A few moments passed in silence and the sick feeling of pain settled as she spoke.

"Why?"

He honestly had no clue what she was asking. Between her flightiness, her struggling, and the sharp daggers of pain jolting through the sensitive parts of his brain, it was probably remarkable that he was able to keep himself standing. The curious sensation of his arm across her chest and the hostility radiating from her in waves of molten ... what? Anger? She seemed almost calm, but for the insane struggle she had subjected him to just a few moments ago. He doubted whether it was fear, given that she had murdered people in cold blood and simply stood to watch him while he took in her handiwork. Being unfamiliar with most emotions, having forgotten them for so long a time, it was difficult for him to grasp what she meant.

Why what? What could she possibly be asking him? Why was he restraining her? He thought about that for a moment. He really did have no reason. It had seemed a natural thing to do, when he saw her trying to flee him. He had reached out, he had grabbed her. Stopping someone from leaving was the right thing to do, the response that had been pre-programmed into him by ... by something. He gritted his teeth and put that thought from his head before it could manifest itself more forcefully. Why had he restrained her? He had restrained her because she had murdered a few people and he wanted to know why. That was a good answer, but he felt that it was not even a shade of the truth. It might have been that he was simply interested in making human contact, but that was as much in doubt as the first. Besides which, she was not human.

"I do not know," was the only way he could answer.

[Lady Knives]

Knives could feel his muscles undulating with pain, and she was suprised that he was even conscious through all that she had just done. 'He probably should have passed out at the contact against the wall', she thought, quite amused.

"Then release me."

He didn't know? Was it really possible to not have a reason for your actions? She scowled, struggling a slight bit now, more out of irritation than the desire to be released. This proved to the heiress that Humans were indeed irrational, random, confusing creatures. She could not fathom his actions, but did not waste her time trying to figure it out.

"If you do not know why you are restraining me, then there is no reason why you should not let me go."

Their current position much reminded her of the way Eclipse restrained her time and time again when she lost her temper when arguing with her father as a girl, besides the fact that she would usually be standing, and STILL struggling. By that time though, he had already drug her away from her Father and simply held her on the balcony. It was the silence that eased her anger, for she would have nothing to be angry about when Eclipse did not scold her. Sighing softly, she allowed her eyes to close, her muscles relaxing as the silence eased them loose, and her bones were drained of the former tension. She knew quite well that if he released her he would do nothing, but then again humans were as unpredictable as animals. Knives had enough patience to last her a few lifetimes, because of course, she would need it since she was immortal, so waiting a few minutes, or even a few hours did not even singe her.

[Silver]

"I am sure there is some reason," the man commented.

The blood was already drying on the floors. It seemed as if that would have provided reason enough, but it failed to do so. Formerly a legionary, formerly a representative of the ham-fisted right arm of a judicious government ... and he found that seeing dead priests gave him nothing more than a vague sense of satisfaction. He would have wondered why, but he was already quite certain that whatever reason there was had been masked behind walls of undefinable amnesia. It was insane to go dredging through memories he found strange simply to find one he knew would be absent. How he knew, he did not know. It was anther of the many confusing paradoxes he had been facing for the last several years. That it annoyed him to no end was, perhaps, merely another aspect of the person he had forgotten he was.

Even as he surveyed the corpses, though, he realized that she was entirely correct. If he had no legitimate reason to hold her—and without doubt he had no reason, for he would sooner die than contact government figures—it was probably better that he let her free. The dim light masked the expression on his face as he thought of that, but light would have shown it to be resentful, bitter, and full of all kinds of distaste. He found that he had no desire to free her, merely to watch her scamper away into some dark crevice and leave him alone once more. Alone with the madness, with the nothingness, totally alone ... he found restraining her against her will was infinitely more likeable a prospect. Therefore his arm stayed, his feet braced themselves against the floor, and he tried to think of another option that would keep him in company with another person.

Bargaining seemed to be a thing he could do. Would she be true to her word, though? He had not remembered it when he first began sharing his life with the insanity, but lies and deceit seemed to be second nature, or even first nature, in most beings. Either as a defense mechanism or a way to subjugate him, he had met others who seemed more intent upon ruining his life through lies than they had on improving their own through work. Was she one of those? He could offer her little. There was nothing he had to give, short of her freedom, and it was her freedom that she wanted in the first place. He frowned in the darkness and thought carefully. It came to him slowly, just as all ideas seemed to, though he had no idea why his own thick-headed nature was so bothersome. None of his memories seemed to indicate that it had bothered him in the past.

"If I let you go," he asked, his voice hopeful and awkward, "you should stay. You will stay. I will let you go if you stay. Please."

[Lady Knives]

The repulsion of his rushed, human powers of reason was evident in her expression as she strained to keep from jerking yet again. Her cheeks were beginning to flush with color, and the temperature of her body was beginning to rise, just like her temper. She was beginning to lose all patience with this man, because they had been like this for well over the amount of time she could tolerate being around a human.

"And I am quite sure that there is not a reason."

She squirmed only slightly this time around, her legs tensing and grinding against his to send the message that she was done with being held this way. Knives growled curses softly under her breath as she heard his proposition: He would let her go if she wouldn't run away.

'Gah! How can I let myself submit...-' She thought wearily, her eyes closing as a soft sigh escaped her pale, chapped lips.

"Fine. Let me go."

[Silver]

The arms pinning her to his chest loosened slowly, reluctantly, and he found his hold on her gone entirely before he knew what was happening. They stood apart quickly even though he moved not an inch, and he found himself blinking slowly at her through the dimness of the room. A pang of helpless fear shot through his chest as his eyes set on her, took in how fleetingly held she was by ... by nothing more than a vague agreement to his demand. The fear settled in slowly, dull and throbbing in some part of his chest he had all but forgotten, and built up as he saw the look in her eyes. She hated standing still, he could tell. She wanted to leave as much as he wanted her to stay. For a moment, he wondered why she was staying at all. Her gaze flicked away to the exit, and he felt himself jolt forward from the wall.

"Please," he choked, one hand grabbing forward to latch into her wrist, "don't!"

Whatever strength she had been holding back before, she made no effort to hide it or control it this time. His fingernails dug into her skin, slightly, as she ripped her arm away, fierce anger evident in every tense muscle of her body. The man recoiled unconsciously and frowned at her, hands coming together to steeple in an amazingly patient gesture he had not used since before he could remember. Just the effort to avoid lunging forward to catch her again made him furrow his brow in frustration, but he avoided the immediate reaction and simply took a few deep breaths. When it was done, he noted that she had not left yet.

Their eyes met for a moment, held. It spiraled from there.