A House is Not a Home
Jan. 20th, 2012 03:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
archiveofarethusaThis place has always been ours. Papa and mama built this house on the very floor they tore its wood from, and the forest has been my backyard and my prison for my entire life. I was nine when I made my first friend, a girl who came to hunt from town named Lynda. She was an answer to a prayer I hadn't ever dared send up to any god. She was the girl I wanted to see staring back at me when the rivers were reflective, blond hair and green eyes and pretty, so pretty; her nose was snubbed and perfect, not too long and not too tiny. She taught me things only townsfolk knew, reading and crafting and sports. I could have left home for her. I really might have. But there are repercussions when you try to learn to read from a spell book.
We were in my room, cuddled up next to the stuffed bear we made together with sheep's cotton and cut glass buttons. That was the last thing I ever felt, the springs of my mattress pressing into my ribcage and the soft, itchy cotton of my bear against my arm, the chill of its glass claws. Lynda's hair tickling my neck as she looked over my shoulder. I couldn't tell you what I am now. I couldn't tell you what would pour from a cut in my skin. But my parents aren't human or beast either way. Their eyes are human, their teeth blunt and white, but not even the Executive Power could say what their bodies are meant to resemble. I could be worse off than them. I don't know. I don't know.
They don't talk much these days. But they scream on the nights the moon waxes full and red.
Tonight the moon is a sliver of pale, bright bone and the blood of our hunt is still repulsively fresh on my tongue. We are home, now, but something new is wrong. A faint smell of lightning stings the air, too faint and new to be natural, as well as blood and ash and sweat. Mama and papa snarl beside me, their gait turning into a tense stalk towards our front door. Inside, our cabinets have been opened, plundered, and not shut, water from our well imbibed. There is a ruth tunic on the floor only partially cleansed of blood by water. The worrisome smells from outside are strong. We have been invaded. There will be more blood on my tongue before the night is done, but here I cannot say it will not be mine.
The invader's stench is in papa and mama's old beds, but it's mine in which she sleeps. What a funny thing to be choosy about, I think, as I contemplate ripping her apart. It would feel so good. But I have to be human. I'm the only one of us who can be, anymore. I swipe the covers from her body and she wakes with a groan of annoyance. She sees me and smirks, all of her angles giving her the appearance of a woman made out of knives and arrows, pulling out a curved knife from under her - my - pillow.
"Aw, that's adorable. It thinks it's people," the woman cooed. Her face darkened, but her smile remained. "I don't think you want to know how this will end. Do you?"
Up close, she smells and feels like an autumn storm, but I - for the first time in a long time - I speak to protest. I hate speaking. I hate the way the words become mangled in my throat, as if I'm not intelligent enough to remember them. I say, more or less, "This is my bed. You are unwelcome. You are hated. Leave now and never return, or you will never return anywhere."
Her smirk turns into a smile, and slyness glitters in her eyes when she hears my threat, as if remembering all the bigger abominations she'd cut down purely by accident. As if this was all cute. She shines like sunlit goldenrod, with hair like spun stars and eyes green as rose thorns. She looks so much like Lynda; I imagine tearing out her throat, her head rolling into a corner and her face becoming Lynda's, shocked and terrified; I can't identify what it makes me feel, but regret isn't it.
Papa and mama find us, and talking has no part of this now. Mama sees this strange woman in underclothes lounging in my bed, smelling of an invader, and launches herself at the woman, jagged claws and harmless teeth bared. The woman...laughs, genuinely gleeful, and strikes a gash across mama's face. Mama screams, blood leaking into her mouth, and papa and I retaliate and recieve much the same treatment. The woman invader hurls a fistful of lightning at mama, and she curls up and dies like a fly sprayed with poison. It isn't long before we are all gone on the floor. All of us but me and the woman. She locks the door in a huff. As if we who were defending our home were the nuisance. As if we were just monsters to be exterminated.
Was there any reason to believe we weren't?
"As if three little cosmic mistakes could defeat me," the woman says, proudly, curling up in her prized bed. It occurs to me this will be the last thing I see, and I almost snarl. I don't; I can hardly move. I'd rather bleed out than die hard.
Funny. My blood is still red.
We were in my room, cuddled up next to the stuffed bear we made together with sheep's cotton and cut glass buttons. That was the last thing I ever felt, the springs of my mattress pressing into my ribcage and the soft, itchy cotton of my bear against my arm, the chill of its glass claws. Lynda's hair tickling my neck as she looked over my shoulder. I couldn't tell you what I am now. I couldn't tell you what would pour from a cut in my skin. But my parents aren't human or beast either way. Their eyes are human, their teeth blunt and white, but not even the Executive Power could say what their bodies are meant to resemble. I could be worse off than them. I don't know. I don't know.
They don't talk much these days. But they scream on the nights the moon waxes full and red.
Tonight the moon is a sliver of pale, bright bone and the blood of our hunt is still repulsively fresh on my tongue. We are home, now, but something new is wrong. A faint smell of lightning stings the air, too faint and new to be natural, as well as blood and ash and sweat. Mama and papa snarl beside me, their gait turning into a tense stalk towards our front door. Inside, our cabinets have been opened, plundered, and not shut, water from our well imbibed. There is a ruth tunic on the floor only partially cleansed of blood by water. The worrisome smells from outside are strong. We have been invaded. There will be more blood on my tongue before the night is done, but here I cannot say it will not be mine.
The invader's stench is in papa and mama's old beds, but it's mine in which she sleeps. What a funny thing to be choosy about, I think, as I contemplate ripping her apart. It would feel so good. But I have to be human. I'm the only one of us who can be, anymore. I swipe the covers from her body and she wakes with a groan of annoyance. She sees me and smirks, all of her angles giving her the appearance of a woman made out of knives and arrows, pulling out a curved knife from under her - my - pillow.
"Aw, that's adorable. It thinks it's people," the woman cooed. Her face darkened, but her smile remained. "I don't think you want to know how this will end. Do you?"
Up close, she smells and feels like an autumn storm, but I - for the first time in a long time - I speak to protest. I hate speaking. I hate the way the words become mangled in my throat, as if I'm not intelligent enough to remember them. I say, more or less, "This is my bed. You are unwelcome. You are hated. Leave now and never return, or you will never return anywhere."
Her smirk turns into a smile, and slyness glitters in her eyes when she hears my threat, as if remembering all the bigger abominations she'd cut down purely by accident. As if this was all cute. She shines like sunlit goldenrod, with hair like spun stars and eyes green as rose thorns. She looks so much like Lynda; I imagine tearing out her throat, her head rolling into a corner and her face becoming Lynda's, shocked and terrified; I can't identify what it makes me feel, but regret isn't it.
Papa and mama find us, and talking has no part of this now. Mama sees this strange woman in underclothes lounging in my bed, smelling of an invader, and launches herself at the woman, jagged claws and harmless teeth bared. The woman...laughs, genuinely gleeful, and strikes a gash across mama's face. Mama screams, blood leaking into her mouth, and papa and I retaliate and recieve much the same treatment. The woman invader hurls a fistful of lightning at mama, and she curls up and dies like a fly sprayed with poison. It isn't long before we are all gone on the floor. All of us but me and the woman. She locks the door in a huff. As if we who were defending our home were the nuisance. As if we were just monsters to be exterminated.
Was there any reason to believe we weren't?
"As if three little cosmic mistakes could defeat me," the woman says, proudly, curling up in her prized bed. It occurs to me this will be the last thing I see, and I almost snarl. I don't; I can hardly move. I'd rather bleed out than die hard.
Funny. My blood is still red.