Fairytale (Through The Bars)
Homecoming
Standard boilerplate: Not a pairing. Violence? Stands alone. Not quite 400 words. Comma abuse, adverb abuse, generally purple melodrama OHNOEZLOL.
She's flying off to nowhere
Leaving all she has unguarded and confused
-- UHP, "Avatar"
She can feel the world going out from under her, a little at a time. It's good that she's prostrate; her knees would not have held her up. Her pulse makes wingbeats in her ear--not hammering in anger but hissing with fear. Her guts are water, boiling water and blood.
"It--is good," she says, breathless. There is no air in this room, but then there isn't air enough in all the Realms to push these words through her teeth without pause. "To be."
She cannot say the word home. There have always been some lies Mileena could not make herself tell.
Not if her life depended on it.
She must try again. He is waiting. Her father does not like to be kept waiting. She hasn't forgotten. She can't.
"Your hospitality!" The words are almost a shriek, or they would be, if she could get the volume; as it is, they come out like normal speech. "Most gracious. My endless thanks, mighty one."
His hand is on her shoulder, so close to her throat; his fingers are solid as steel bolts against her spine. She quivers from the effort of staying in place. Can't recoil. Don't back away. There's no cause to make him angry.
"Mileena," he says, shaping her name into an ownership. Today his tones are forge-hot and low--his attempt at silk and smoke and what might be seduction if he felt anything for her except contempt. "Rise."
And just like that, her feet obey her and the shivering stops. She realizes with sudden, icy clarity that she is covered in sweat and dust, wholly unfit for an audience in these circumstances--she should be ashamed. She will be. It's already stealing in around the edges, prompting thoughts of a scouring brush and water hot enough to scald. Lye to steal into the cuts and creases and set her nerves to screaming. Anything to get the smell out. Anything to make her more suitable.
She will do anything at all to be accepted.
"I'm so glad," she says, taking his hand without hesitation, smiling broadly, "to be home, father."
"Remarkable," he mutters, and even under his breath his voice carries like the rumble of a distant storm. "It's really amazing."
Glamoury. He should have thought of it years ago.
Standard boilerplate: Not a pairing. Violence? Stands alone. Not quite 400 words. Comma abuse, adverb abuse, generally purple melodrama OHNOEZLOL.
She's flying off to nowhere
Leaving all she has unguarded and confused
-- UHP, "Avatar"
She can feel the world going out from under her, a little at a time. It's good that she's prostrate; her knees would not have held her up. Her pulse makes wingbeats in her ear--not hammering in anger but hissing with fear. Her guts are water, boiling water and blood.
"It--is good," she says, breathless. There is no air in this room, but then there isn't air enough in all the Realms to push these words through her teeth without pause. "To be."
She cannot say the word home. There have always been some lies Mileena could not make herself tell.
Not if her life depended on it.
She must try again. He is waiting. Her father does not like to be kept waiting. She hasn't forgotten. She can't.
"Your hospitality!" The words are almost a shriek, or they would be, if she could get the volume; as it is, they come out like normal speech. "Most gracious. My endless thanks, mighty one."
His hand is on her shoulder, so close to her throat; his fingers are solid as steel bolts against her spine. She quivers from the effort of staying in place. Can't recoil. Don't back away. There's no cause to make him angry.
"Mileena," he says, shaping her name into an ownership. Today his tones are forge-hot and low--his attempt at silk and smoke and what might be seduction if he felt anything for her except contempt. "Rise."
And just like that, her feet obey her and the shivering stops. She realizes with sudden, icy clarity that she is covered in sweat and dust, wholly unfit for an audience in these circumstances--she should be ashamed. She will be. It's already stealing in around the edges, prompting thoughts of a scouring brush and water hot enough to scald. Lye to steal into the cuts and creases and set her nerves to screaming. Anything to get the smell out. Anything to make her more suitable.
She will do anything at all to be accepted.
"I'm so glad," she says, taking his hand without hesitation, smiling broadly, "to be home, father."
"Remarkable," he mutters, and even under his breath his voice carries like the rumble of a distant storm. "It's really amazing."
Glamoury. He should have thought of it years ago.