She takes a sip of her tea without smudging her red lipstick. Her talons, painted to match her eyes and lip-paint, clink sweetly against the porcelain. She sets it down on the table before us, as her claws retreat from her drink. In her chest is not a heart, only the drumline.
My anxious heart beats as if against bars, captive by this self-sacrificial love. My talon brings this shaking crystal glass of burgundy wine to my indigo painted lips.
A song of colorful lights hums into the VIP suite from behind the balcony curtains. They dance to this false festivity between a bottle of wine and a teapot. This venue might have been romantic, the velvet with dark wood and exotic stones reminds me of our early reign.
She quietly reclines her cold body into mine.
I lift my wing over her as one would an arm, not with affection, but merely to keep the peace. However those nights have long since flown, never to return. Good, they are safe in the past. This place is starting to feel suffocating and gaudy.
“Sweet moonflower.” She lays one talon on my thigh, the other on the side of my neck.
Shutting my eyes as I feel her talons trapping me. “Yes my goddess?”
She caresses my thigh, her hold on my neck increases with her strength.
Opening my eyes to her as she lays the back of her head on my chest, our eyes locking. My talon fidgets around the stem of the glass.
“Do you still love me, Koriath?” She smiles up at me with that signature haunting look.
Slowly she applies more pressure with her claws. Her gaze shifts to a stare, but her smile persists.
The glass trembles in my talon as I lift it to drink. “I do not.”
“Then I have an idea.” Captivating my free talon with the touch of hers, she looks up toward me with a passionate look that I have not seen from her in at least ten ages. “I know how we can save our marriage, rebirth our gravity.”
My talon clenches the stem of the glass with her touch. “The appearance of our marriage can be salvaged with great effort. I doubt the gravity well between our souls will ever refill if you keep mine bound by blackmail.” Sipping the wine.
She rises to turn her body so that we are face to face, that look in her eyes is unwavering. “Let’s start again, I want to have another hatchling with you.”
Fighting not to spew this burgundy medication over myself or her from her choking words. Bitterly forcing myself to swallow so that my voice may be free. Yet even with this, all I can manage is a furious whisper. “Impossible.”
Her fingers start to caress mine without love. “It isn’t impossible, I can lift the curse of infertility that-”
“Keep it.”
“It is not fair to you, I need to correct that mistake. It was harmful to us.”
“Unless you can magically bring back Nephti and Desiderius from the grave, then there is nothing you can do to right your wrongs.” Struggling not to cry as I take not a sip but a gulp, a ceaseless thirst for salvation from this conversation.
“I am not the healing one of us, I can only mend my own wounds, you are the one who failed to resurrect them. Do not bring them up to me again, I never want to hear their names flow from your lips.” Her bladed eyes and tongue sharpen.
“Get your talons off of me. I am going home.” The glass declares its position with a ringing thud as I set it upon the table.
Malencia roughly grabs both my wrists as she poises to sit just above my hips. “If you act like a coward and run, I have no issue hunting down deserters and making them pay their price.”
She is referencing Kurai and Phantisma. Feeling tears begin in my own eyes, fighting to push them back, when I should be pushing her back. Malencia will take it out on them, not me.
“I am sorry Mali.” Crying as I break free of her hold, only to wrap my arms around her. Continuing to cry as I pull her down toward me and hold her close.
“Sweet Moonflower, we can have a family that I am willing to be a part of.” Her voice shifts so sweetly as she holds me as well.
“Then start acting like you want to be a part of the one you already have.” I cry.
“If you want to keep those two, that is fine, I understand your attachment. However, I want to raise a new childling with you. One forged from a new start.”
“I refuse to bring another childling into this nightmare family dynamic. By the way, that is the worst apology I have ever heard.”
She giggles. “That was not an apology.”
Now trying to distract her from this situation and conversation. “By the way my goddess, why did you choose for us to come out to a club when you do not drink?”
She smiles still, her words dripping like poisoned honey as her talons massage upward into mine. “Why for the prestige of course, and for our anniversary to be witnessed by only the finest company. Extra-galactic celebrities, godly nobility, leaders of nation planets, and multi-universal super stars.” Gently lowering herself to sit on my hips, which are caught between her knees.
“You are flaunting me as nothing more than your accessory.” My wing cast over her falls to the floor, along with my hope for some sense of rekindling.
“Accessory? Oh Kori no.” She brings both my talons up toward her. Leaning in and kissing them as she keeps her eyes locked with mine.
That look in her eyes, I cannot help but to bend to the gravity of her stare. Soul piercing, a crushing abyss that calls longingly to me.
“All are just a passing night in comparison to you Koriath.”
Each time I meet her within it, I resurface with less and less of myself. But in the moment of drowning in her waves…
She wipes my tears with her talons, leaving gentle scratches on my cheek bones. “And no gem can match the beauty of your tears.”
Malencia leans her head in, while I helplessly watch as her lips approach mine. Swerving my face to the side, she fiercely grabs my chin. Turning my head toward her, she kisses me deeply.
Silent tears still fall as I gently push her off from my mouth by her sternum. “I am honored that you find my tears beautiful, yet what about how horrifying I find you?”
“That’s the beauty of it Koriath, your tears are so sincere.”
“You dragged me out here to be nothing more than a dessert for the eyes of yourself and others. I agreed because I am starving for a meal of love from your table. If you wish to continue to parade me around as your servant of love, I understand. You must feel so prestigious and powerful that way. Yet, if you wish for me to remain more than a hatefilled, hollow, soulless servant, I have two conditions for you.”
“Conditions? Oh sweet night candy, how sour you are turning.” She breaks out in laughter.
Fiercely my arm makes a break for the bottle of wine, clutching it firmly in my talons. “Do not mock me, Malencia.”
“I never said I would not taste your sour or bitterness. In fact, I could suck it right out of you if I truly wanted to. Consume all of that fear and terror from you, pulling you into only a pleasurably numb abyss.”
Valiantly taking off the stopper, now guzzling the wine as if an act of war.
“Is that all you are going to do you coward? Chase the false joy that you find in the bottom of a bottle, when your true joy is at your hips, gowned in glory, thirsting for your honest tribute?”
Breaking from the bottle as if I had been drowning. “Then take these words as a pledge, if you wish for me to be your willing puppet, then treat me with the utmost care and devotion.”
“Oh?” She takes a talon, her claw digging sharply into my inner thigh. As her legs divide mine, she brushes up against the anniversary gift I brought for her. “Wait, what is that?”
Setting the empty bottle back down on the table. “I brought you a present.”
“Is that why you wore pants under your waist-robes tonight? Talk about uncharacteristic.”
Making sure she feels the heartbroken gravity of my stare, as I reach for my pocket. “I wore pants because of you.”
“Awe, you are adorable, but you did not have to dress modestly for me. I do not mind if other women look at you. I trust you, I know looking is the most they are going to get.” She silences me with another kiss as she takes my talon out of my pocket. “Allow me.”
“Mali, I did not do it to protect myself from others. I forgot there is no defense that you cannot break once your mind is made up.”
She keeps me pinned with her legs and hips as she pulls out the small box, wrapped in satin ribbon, painted with silver. “Hold this for me while I open it.”
Forcing myself to speak as my talons hold it before her. “My goddess of shadow and splendor, the awe in the awful, I present you with-”
She chuckles as she takes it in her own talons, then carefully unwraps the ribbon with grace. Unveiling it reveals a bracelet. The chain links with the signature silver blue of the osmium I harvested a few ages back, before the girls.
Her smile turns to a frown as she lifts it out of the box. Watching the metal crafting gradually degrade down the chain, then end in a designer work.
“Koriath, what is this?”
“A representation of our marriage. Beautifully disgusting isn’t it? I poured all of my love and hate into it one piece at a time over sixteen ages. I could not keep up with the project, care for twins, and my work duties; so I sent it off to a professional whose pieces you already wear.”
Her eyes shift again, her smile furious, like back in the garden. “Moonflower, let me see your talon.”
Silently putting down the box on the table and then surrendering my left talon to her.
She takes it with a caress, then starts massaging my palm with one talon, the other still holds the bracelet. “It’s just so funny that you called yourself my accessory, and what have you given me?”
A lap pet is treated better than I, however I can’t tell her that. She knows. I once was her willing pet fae-bird… back when I loved her.
The stinging strike of the bracelet chain pulls me from my thoughts. The clasp and the links with jagged edges flay my palm.
She laughs as holds my talon closed. “Good now, transform the ugly parts into something pretty for me. Hold it tight, then open your talon.”
Doing exactly as she says, bits of my fleshform stick to the jewelry as she painfully peels it out. My blood ether drips from it as she proudly holds it between our eyes.
“Now it is perfect. You can heal yourself now.”
Nodding to her as I do so, though I am still trying to process what just happened on top of our conversation repeating in my mind.
“Will you put it on for me, Kori?” She dangles it over her wrist.
Silent still, I reach out and put it on for her, then recline back into this divan-like lounger. At least this heartache and horror is in comfort and style. My heart starts to beat fiercely as she now starts to admire the piece.
“You said earlier that I could have your love back if I pledge two things. What does that entail?”
Terrified of the situation, not thinking about my word choices. “Come dance with me in the public eye first.”
“Oh? Well that was simple. And what about the second?”
I have squandered my first request. Regaining my strength and adamance as I grab her waist and shoulders, using her legs wrapped around mine to move her beside me.
Both of us are now on our sides so she cannot corner me. “The fastest way to my heart is through family. Please allow me to bring Phantisma home in peace.” My throat hurts as I continue to plead. “I am sure she has learned her lesson.”
Malencia unwraps herself from me, I let go of her as she moves to sit up on her own. “What is wrong with you? Are you still brooding or something? Have you finally broken? You cannot go a night without talking about either one of them can you?”
“Gorgeous Terror, Malencia my Raven Queen,” traveling on a darkened mist, reforming on my knees on the floor. Purposely trapped between her and the table.
“Are you not my goddess? If I am still your favorite devoted one? All I ask is for a dance to begin to rekindle our love and for both of our living childlings to be raised together.”
“I do not owe you anything.” As she says this, she strips me down to my ethereal soul form, her cursed chains displayed upon me.
“No you do not. You could take what you want, but I would hate you for it. … If me asking for that threatens my daughters then please, let me retract it. I would rather them be alive and distant, than close and dead.”
“What a lovely, devoted one you are, this is why you are my favorite.” She smiles down at me sadistically. “So you do not mind my cruelty, as long as I love you for enduring it?”
“I need real love Mali. I need your love to continue carrying this pain. Intoxicatingly pleasurable as passions of lust may be sometimes in the moment, lately my soul feels worse for wear after. I feel only sorrow and shame.”
Her grasp on my soul softens. “Worse for wear? When did that start happening? You mean you don’t feel what I feel?”
“You, feeling?” Chuckling myself. “Good one. What could you possibly be able to feel?”
She pulls me up from the floor, then on top of her under the guise of a loving embrace.
“Power.” Unspeakable terror as those eyes, painted precisely to bring out that heartless spinel leer.
“Interesting, you manage to make me feel powerless and pleasureless after.”
“Koriath, I feel our combined power when our souls are united. Afterwards, it is as if I can see the darkness of the multiverses clearly. How do you not experience what I do?”
“I used to feel that way with you. I saw into the heart of the darkest void, the most crushing abyss, and still I loved her. Destructive clarity was our dance. Now, could you please release me so that we can go dancing?”
“Only if this painful dance rekindles our gravity.” Malencia stands up as she waves her talon, bringing me back into my flesh form. She offers her talon to me.
I hold hers in mine with my own strength ceremoniously.
With our talons locked together, we make our way through the door. Down a splendid hall to an elevator. The chatter of other prominent guests, the music elegantly giving voice through the descent of the ornate box.
Malencia starts dancing in place in the elevator. Still holding her talon, I smile nervously while tapping a toelan to the beat.
Did I just make it out of there safely? Are my princesses still in danger from her? Does she really want another childling or is this another assault on my emotions? I want to trust her. I want to believe that everything is going to be alright. Is it going to get worse after we dance? Finally, the soft ding of arrival saves me from a haunting barrage of my mind.
Her head held high as she struts us out of the elevator, making our way to the dance floor. Here our bodies do not stand out from the cosmopolitan crowd, yet between our eyes a tango of souls. Every step is like sparring, sparring within a dance. Entwined in each other’s gravity like two parts of a binary star. Feelings without conversation in each other’s arms only for our own intimate grace.
Then after a few songs, through the beating of my heart, it all starts to swirl. My mind begins to bend to the call of time and space.