A Court's Maim

پھر بھی | Still

Twenty-Eight.

"I will prefer that you stop beating around the bush." Barekhna spoke through clenched teeth.

Sweeping her carnal gaze with no sense of respect over the blooms of petunia's, their sprinkling pollen a shade of gold that reminded her of an all too familiar rosary pricked her. The tip of her chin, cupped in the well of her palm, wrapped around the swell of her bottom lip she frowned. Feigning innocence as they murmured words. She sighed with a soft disposition, reclining into the chair that had after years of use begun to sink. Tattered leather ends wrapped themselves over her red palm, her nails digging into the slouched fabric. As she searched in their eyes for the lasts of lingering respect.

"Yeh tarbiyat ki hai tumhari ma nai? Martay huway daday ko bad dua do gi?" Her grandmother scoffed.
[Is this the upbringing of your mother? That you will wish ill on your dying grandfather?]

Barekhna pressed her heels into the thick hand knitted carpet. The baroques with their beige and swirling leaves in red almost matched the web of her family tree. Tiny stars that lingered in the inner side of the scratched wood of the chair, was a reminder of her childhood. It was a bittersweet amalgamation of what had been. Or what simply she had been made to believe. Wrapping a finger over the thin bones of the chair's lattice work, she traced the designs and stared without fail into the eyes of her grandmother. Tipping her head to the side with an arrogant grin. Unfeeling as she pushed her mouth open, grinning with no remorse.

"She's raised me well enough to not murder you. However," she whispered, singing her words out in a lazy drawl, "there isn't any relationship between us that you can use to guilt trip me."

"Still it is no way—" her aunt butted in, snapping her fingers. 

"And since when have I cared about the ways?" She narrowed her gaze, tapping her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

Separated from the gaudy tastelessness by leagues in her — his button down tucked into her leather pants and strapped maroon heels, Barekhna knew she was what she wanted them to see. Parted through the centre, slicked back into a low bun, thick gold earrings, that she twirled with her index finger, Barekhna took a sip of her tea. It tasted burnt — above the centre of her velvety tongue, it added flavour of smoke, burning through her throat. Taking a tiny sip, mulling over the lack of flavour, a talent only some would have. To burn a basic chamomile tea.

"Now let's get this over with," she rubbed her palms, pressing her lips together, "why was I invited over for tea? We're not exactly friendly are we?"

Buzzing deeply between the brick lined walls and the opulent carpets, was a crème shaded heater, burning. Deep orange and a lingering red spurred between it's wedged windows, radiating heat, scarring the skins nearby from it's intensity. It painted the neutral tones in the shades of it's blood thirst. Creeping outside with the might of a marching stranger, generous winds pulsated against the tall windows. Barred with the metal fixtures, running in squares of threes, stained with a gentle violet tint to reflect most light out. Setting beneath the orange trees that curled around the window sil's after years of careful maintenance, the sun bled it's lasts. Mocking the complacent skies that were shades of yellows, pinks and deep vermilion. Going out — with a spurring fight.